If Enniskillen can overcome Ballyclare in the Ulster Junior Cup final on Monday it could propel the squad towards further success, according to inside centre Daire Hill.

The 21 year old is hopeful that a strong showing against the team who finished second in the league this season will convince players and supporters alike that they can compete with the best.

“It would be absolutely massive for the club and the players,” he said. “The league hasn’t gone well so this could boost the boys confidence for next year, to know that we can go and challenge teams at the top of the table. It is just to put that into the boys’ heads.

“Ballyclare finished second and were putting it up to Valley, and were quite close to them all year, so if we can go and beat them, the boys will have it in their heads that we can do this and we can go and push for the top one or two spots in the league.

“After losing a final in January against Clogher we were a bit sickened, and we have kept those feelings. We know how it hurt us, and now we know winning this would be massive.”

Inconsistency during the league season led to a seventh placed finish in Ulster Rugby Championship Division One. Hill does not think that final placing is a true reflection of the quality of the squad, and a better indication of their abilities has been their run of strong performances over the past few games.

“We lost to Ballyclare twice this year, and that is always in the back of your mind, but the way we have been playing this last four or five games has been a massive improvement from when we first came out and played them,” he said.

‘Not the same team now’

“It’s not the same team now and we have been building rightly, so I think we are in the best place that we could be. I’m not sure if its just belief. We have had a few injuries here and there. Nothing serious, but we haven’t had a consistent team until the last four or five games. All season we have had players jumping in and out and it has been hard to get some consistency, but we are going nicely now and things are falling together.”

In the midst of their early season inconsistency were two defeats to Ballyclare, but despite being on the wrong end of the score line on each occasion, Daire believes they showed enough in their performance to give them hope that they can reverse the result this time around.

“The first time we played Ballyclare this season was early in the season and we weren’t quite at the races, although there wasn’t that much in it,” he recalled. “You could see that it was hard to separate the teams. Then when we went up to them it was really icy weather and there was frost on the pitch, and we went down to 14 men with injuries and a yellow card or two, and they ran away with it in the second half.

“At half time I think it was seven all or maybe seven ten so you can’t say there was much separating the teams. It was just about them finishing off their chances and we weren’t as clinical as we should have been.”

The final is the culmination of a breakthrough season for Hill. Having made occasional appearances in the previous campaign, he has now established his place in the starting line up and he is looking forward to playing in another big final.

‘Room for improvement’

“There is still room to improve but I’m happy enough with the way my season has gone,” he admitted. “I had a few games last season, but this is the first season I have thought the jersey was mine and I made it my own and put my mark on it. I’ve not had any injuries and it is the first time in a long time that I got a full season out of it.

“The final is another chance to play up in Belfast at Ravenhill and that is massive. I am 21 and I would be one of the older boys in the squad, so all these boys have another 10 or 12 years of getting to these finals and it is brilliant. The boys are over the moon to be going, and hopefully there will be a big crowd going to support us.”