Niall Owens is a four year veteran of the Super Cup, but he is looking forward to this year’s tournament as much as ever before.

The Ballinamallard winger will kick off his tournament in a glamour exhibition match when he represents Northern Ireland against Manchester United, before getting down to the serious business with his county team.

Niall is the most experienced member of the squad, having made 23 Irish League appearances for his club including matches against the likes of Linfield and Crusaders. He believes that know-how will serve him well in the high pressure environment of the Super Cup.

“Playing with and against grown men has really helped my game,” he admitted. “I learned a lot playing with older players last year and I’m much more comfortable with things like giving instructions now. My experience of playing in front of big crowds is going to be good, because obviously the Super Cup attracts big crowds. A lot of people always make the trip to watch the games. It’s my fourth and final year at the tournament and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Fermanagh will face some big name sides in the tournament, with a clash against the reigning champions the highlight for Niall. “Right to Dream was the one that stuck out because they have won it for a couple of years in a row,” he said. “We know what Down is going to be like because games between two counties is always tight. GPS Bayern we don’t know much about because we haven’t played them before but we will see what it brings. From the first three games we feel that we can get a result in every game.”

Niall starred last year when the Fermanagh Premier side gave the champs a scare before eventually going down 2-1 to the African team, and he hopes that experience will assist them this time around. “Obviously the first two games are going to be difficulty but Higgy and Nathan have us set up and we know we are not going to have the ball a lot, especially in the Right to Dream game. Last year they didn’t really hurt us and we were able to hit them on the counter attack, so we know what to do and we have a game plan that we will stick to. We have been training since January and we have worked a lot on shape. We know we can score goals. We have scored a lot in the recent games and we know we can score when we get up there, so we need to make sure the defence keep them out and we can do well.”