Finals don’t come around too often and that is very much the case for Erne Gaels and Kinawley who will contest this Sunday’s Division One final at Brewster Park.

Erne Gaels last played in a Division One final back in 1996 when they claimed the title and manager Seamus Ryder says that victory is one that is much talked about still in Belleek as the current crop look to follow in that team’s footsteps.

“We won Division One in 1996, that was the last time we were in the final, and all the boys know about it, so it means a lot to the boys to be in the final, it is important to us,” he said.

Kinawley’s wait on a Divison One final appearance is much longer, the Brian Borus having last played in the decider 60 years ago in 1962 when they lost to Devenish.

“We are in a Division One final and it hasn’t happened Kinawley for 60 years so we are going to really look forward to the game,” explained manager Dom Corrigan.

It is Erne Gaels who come into the game as favourites having won nine out of nine in the league, including a hard fought win over Enniskillen last weekend.

“It ended up an excellent game. It was hard to know with the boys going into it because we were already in the final but it was about keeping the unbeaten record, that was the motivation.

“By the end it felt like a championship game, the crowd was up for us and it was tough and it was a great game to come out on the right end of,” Ryder commented.

The Belleek men also had a big win over Kinawley a couple of weeks ago but Ryder stresses that they expect a much tougher test this time around.

“They were severely understrength, they had four or five top players missing that day, so we won’t read too much into that game and we are expecting a massive battle.

“We won’t be underestimating them in any way, Dom has done a great job there and we know they will be organised and motivated and they have some good forwards who we will need to be wary of,” he added.

It is the Erne Gaels attacking threat though that has caught the eye. They hit four goals in that game against Kinawley while they added another three goals last weekend and Ryder knows that a goal will be a big score in the final.

“We have been really good in that regard over the last four or five games and hopefully we can do the same on Sunday. If we can get a couple and not concede any at the other end we will be there or thereabouts at the end,” said Ryder.

Kinawley counterpart Corrigan believes that being in the final will be a great experience for the young players in his squad.

“We are delighted, we would be quite a young side and we have blooded a lot of young players this year and for them to get the experience of playing in a senior league final is great and we’ll be looking to go out and give a really good account of ourselves this Sunday,” said Corrigan.

Kinawley’s league final hopes appeared to be slipping away when they lost to Erne Gaels and Enniskillen but they bounced back with wins over Ederney and Derrylin to secure their final berth and Corrigan was pleased with the resilience shown by his squad and states that they have taken plenty of lessons from the competition.

“Leagues are for learning and we have learned a lot over the course of the league. We learned a lot through winning close games and we have learned also through shipping a couple of heavy defeats to both Enniskillen and Erne Gaels.

“I suppose what that has shown is that the group is quite resilient, the group have a fair bit of character to bounce back and we are now in a Division One final and we will go out, do our best and take lessons from it irrespective of the result,” he said.

Kinawley have also had to deal with a lot of injuries during the league campaign but Corrigan looks to the positive of that in terms of others stepping up and showing they can contribute at this level.

“We’ve had a bad streak of injuries over this last two or three months but every club has been the exact same and what has pleased me about it is that the players who have come in have really did well and that has meant that the depth in our squad has been tested and has been good. With the championship running three or four weeks in a row I think depth in squad is going to be important.”

He has though been impressed with what he has seen from Erne Gaels so far in the league as they get ready for Sunday’s showdown.

“I’ve watched them from early in the season and they have been turning in some super performances. I admire the way they have went about their work this year. I know Ciaran Smith with them, he captained my MacRory winning team in 1999 and he is a brilliant leader and Seamus Ryder has a great football brain and those two men deserve great credit,” he said.

Like Ryder, Corrigan isn’t going to read too much into that league defeat a few weeks ago and he is looking for a performance from his charges at Brewster Park.

“We would like to think we had learned from that and we hopefully will go out an give a solid performance this Sunday. That’s our target,” he concluded.