David Buchanan will travel to the Kingspan Stadium on Easter Monday hoping it is fourth time lucky.

Three times he has tasted defeat in the Towns’ Cup final with Enniskillen, but having lost out in 2007, 2016 and 2017, he is hopeful that this time around it will be different. Enniskillen go into the final as underdogs having lost twice to opponents Ballyclare in the league this season.

David missed both those games through injury, but he is ready to make amends for those losses and help Enniskillen to their first Towns’ Cup since 1937.

“People will look at the league positions and the previous meetings between the teams this season, but when it comes to a cup final anything can happen and I think the boys will go in with a real belief they can do a job,” said David.

“Everyone who has been following our season will know it’s a season of two halves. We struggled before Christmas but the Towns’ Cup came along at the right time and it gave us a new interest and seemed to kick on our results and we have been in a rich vein of form. I think we weren’t just getting the rub of the green but after Christmas everything seemed to click.

Stevie and Ash, our coaches, were instilling that in us, and it all seemed to come together and that rich vein of form cemented our place in Qualifying One for next season. There has been a real belief in the boys that we could do better, and that has been evidenced in the results. The team now is settled and has found itself producing some real quality, which sets us up well for Easter Monday.”

Ballyclare finished second in the league table and are the reigning Towns’ Cup holders, but David believes Enniskillen have enough quality throughout the squad to cause them problems.

“We are under no illusions that this will be a very tough game,” he said. “They have a good pack but our pack this year has been a real strong point for us, and we have built some very strong phases from it, and any team coming up against us has feared our pack such as been our dominance in scrums and lineouts.

“ Looking past the pack, we have a very talented back line. We have the experience of Nicky Finlay and some of the young boys will be playing their third final in four years. There is certainly talent in the squad and I hope they can unlock their potential on Monday and bring that cup home.”