BY MATTHEW WILSON

Burt will be aiming to go one better than last year when they face fellow Inishowen outfit Buncrana in the Intermediate ‘B’ Final this weekend.

The Hibernian Park residents booked their spot in this Sunday’s showpiece with a three-point victory over Gaeil Fhánada last weekend.

It was a good win for a young Burt side which has seen a lot of change in the last 12 months according to manager Kevin Glenn.

The club missed out on the Intermediate ‘B’ title this time last year, losing to Termon in the decider by two points.

Glenn expressed that the group were disappointed to have missed out last season but insists that the young panel will give it a good go again this time around.

“It was very tight yesterday (Sunday) now. They were very experienced and had a lot of older lads but our young boys rallied. We’re probably a bit inexperienced, we’ve a lot of young boys in the squad.

“It’s probably coming a little earlier for them, another final. There’s been big changes since last year, I think there’s six or seven new lads in but we’re back in it and we’ll give it another go.

“We were very disappointed in last year’s final against a very good Termon team, I think that was three in-a-row that they won.”

It’s been a big couple of years for the Burt reserve team. The club were unable to put a side together in the years between 2019 and 2021 but got back on the field in 2022 before reaching the last four of the competition in 2023 and the decider last time out.

“We didn’t have a reserve team in 2019, 2020 and 2021. We got back going again in 2022 and we said we’d field in every league game. We won the Division Three league and we got to the final last year and the semi-final the year before.”

The Hibernian Park men began their Championship campaign with back-to-back defeats, including one against the Scarvey residents, but recovered well by winning their next four to seal a final spot.

They’ll be relishing the challenge in front of them this weekend and the Burt boss discussed that it’ll be a good day for his young side.

“We’re tipping along nicely. We’d a bad start to the Championship, we lost to Fanad on the opening day, we were taught a tight lesson in Buncrana but other than that we’ve rallied well.

“We won our last two games in the quarter-final and semi-final so it’s coming along nicely.

“Sunday will be a big day for a lot of those young boys and it’ll be a good day out for them.”