Instonians coach Paul Pritchard says Senior Cup trophy would be icing on cake after club's revival

Pritchard says he is ‘very proud’ of the club’s progress after rising through the ranks to reach a big showpiece final.

“Everyone knows about Instonians story over the last few years and it is one that we are very proud of,” he said, “and I think it shows how far we have came from three years ago; being in that Junior playoff to now being in the Senior Cup final is a huge achievement.

“It is one that we are very proud of – we are extremely excited for Saturday and there is a real good buzz around the group.

“There is a lot of experience among the guys at the club with the Senior Cup – it has been a while since Inst have been in it themselves.

“In terms of experience you have Ritchie McMaster and Dave Whitten won it a couple of years ago; Rob Whitten has won it four times so there is a lot of experience there. We’re looking forward to it and we’re excited.”

If Inst lift the trophy on Saturday, they will have done it the hard way by beating Ulster’s three AIL Division 1 clubs.

“The lads have worked their butts off and they deserve it but that is not how it works – by just doing it the hard way doesn’t mean you are going to get it,” added Pritchard.

“I think after the Hinch away game that gave us so much confidence and we knew that we could go all the way then.

“It is a very tough place to go for any team, that time of the year at Ballymacarn with the Hinch crowd, so to go there and get that result was absolutely outstanding.

“We have had to do it the hard way but that really doesn’t matter that much on Saturday. We’ll just have to play our best rugby for 80 minutes.

“It’s going to be all guns blazing but there is no pressure on us, all the pressure is on Queen’s. They are a team which probably underperformed this year.

“They have had those playoff games and they are a Division 1 team, and they have a lot of their Ulster lads in there,” Pritchard said.

"We are the underdogs and the pressure is on them. We’re looking forward to that and we quite enjoy that, and it gives are guys a lot of freedom.

“We’re certainly going to go for it. Pressure is off, we know we are underdogs, but we are going to give it a bloody good shot.”

While Queen’s battled their way through the playoffs Inst haven’t had a game since April 6, leaving Pritchard pondering who has the advantage – his team being fresh or the battle-hardened students.

“It’s hard to know, I’ll tell you at 5 o’clock on Saturday,” he said. “It’s difficult. Queen’s have had two tough games and two games that I thought they played very well in and we have had that time off.

“We are a very inward-looking team. We like to focus on ourselves, we have had a lot more time to prep which comes with it’s own downsides.

“We have had more time off but Queen’s have had a lot more intensity so we’ll see – we’re hoping we can use it to our advantage.”