Sadly dire prospects for fellowship (6,2,5)
I believe the answer is:
esprit de corps
'fellowship' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'sadly dire prospects' is the wordplay.
'sadly' indicates anagramming the letters.
'dire'+'prospects'='direprospects'
'direprospects' is an anagram of 'ESPRIT DE CORPS'.
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for esprit de corps that I've seen before include "Spirit of loyalty - purpose of a group" , "Team spirit" , "Feeling of pride and loyalty shared by members of a group (French)" , "camaraderie" , "The feeling's mutual!" .)