Head coach Alastair Keys believes his squad’s togetherness was a key factor in their Towns Cup final win.

The first XV was much changed this season, with an injection of new youthful players making the step up to the first team, and that policy has paid dividends for Keys and his coaching team as they topped off an impressive league campaign with cup success at the Kingspan Stadium.

Keys believes the way his team has quickly gelled together was a key advantage his players had over Ballymena IIs.

“We are maybe playing as a team a bit more regularly at a higher level,” he said. “They are possibly with being a two-team club, they are changed more often so I would have thought we were the more settled side.

“I think overall we definitely deserved to win the game. Obviously, Ballymena came back into it towards the end of the first half, but I felt we were the better side.”

The Towns Cup win, Enniskillen’s first for five years, marked the perfect way to bounce back from the disappointment of missing out on the league title by the slenderest of margins.

“I think in a way the league is what we were going for, but it was nice to have this to play for,” said Keys.

“At the end of the day, we have only won it four times in a hundred years, so it is a big day for us.”

Having competed successfully on two fronts this season hopes will be high as the club heads into next season, but Keys is expecting a difficult challenge if they are to go one better in the league and top the table in 2025.

“It is all to play for and we have to try and build on it,” he admitted, “but it will be interesting to see what happens at the bottom of 2C at the moment with Bangor and Omagh kicking around there, and whether Ballyclare will be in our league or not. It could be a really tough one if Ballyclare don’t get out and one of those two sides come down.”