BY MATTHEW WILSON

Burt hurling captain Michael Gill is looking forward to today’s Junior Hurling Championship Final with Letterkenny Gaels on what he classifies as the ‘best day for hurling in Donegal’.

The Hibernian Park residents have a quality junior hurling side and appear to have used the competition to bleed young players into the senior ranks.

Gill discussed that the reason behind the junior team within the club is primarily to keep people playing the sport and to help them to gain experience.

“That’s nearly the point of our junior team, to keep these young boys that have just turned 18 or lads that would be on the bench for the seniors usually to keep them playing hurling and get them experience under their belt.”

With the three Donegal Hurling Finals being played back-to-back at O’Donnell Park this Saturday, it could be described as a festival of hurling.

It’s a brilliant day where Donegal hurling gets to showcase what it has to offer. The Burt captain described it as ‘the best day for hurling in Donegal’.

“It’s the best day for hurling in Donegal. I think it’s really important that people do see the hurling in Donegal, especially the junior and intermediate level and to promote the growth of the game, it’s really important”, said Gill.

He continued, “that’s what we really need, we need more teams from more clubs as that brings more competition and the better the matches will be in the end.”

Looking ahead to this weekend’s Junior Hurling Championship decider, Gill is aware of the threat that Letterkenny Gaels possess within their ranks, having lost out to them when the two teams met previously in Sean Mills’ men’s own backyard.

“Letterkenny Gaels beat us in the group stage by six or seven points and they have some really good players. They’ve some good young players too like Donal Farrelly who’s up with the county this year so that’s something that we don’t have for our team.”

The Burt captain is looking forward to this weekend’s contest with the Letterkenny outfit but insists that it’s vital to just treat it like any other game.

“The importance of a final is to treat it as any other match. You go to training, show up and eat right throughout the week and play as well as you can just like any other match.”

With the Burt senior team’s title defence coming to an end in last month’s semi-final, the 21-year-old feels that the entire community has now gotten behind the Junior side in the lead up to this Saturday’s showpiece.

“In Burt getting to a county final is nearly like a ritual at this stage. After this year with the seniors, I think the parish has gotten behind us then for our final.”