The penultimate game before the split sees Glenavon welcome Coleraine to Mourneview Park for this Danske Bank Premiership fixture. The teams will meet again in a couple of weeks time in the Tennent’s Irish Cup semi-final, a double-header that both managers would probably have preferred to avoid. “I already spoke to Oran Kearney and it’s something that managers don’t want; you don’t want to be playing a team two times in two weeks. It’s not ideal but at the end of the day it’s the hand you’ve been dealt with and you have to get on with it. It’s the semi-final of the Irish Cup and you wouldn’t swop that for anything. Sometimes familiarity can be a bad thing in football and I’m just hoping we can perform in the two games that we play them,” Gary Hamilton explained.

Photo by Maynard Collins

“They’re both big games for Coleraine, for sure, because they have the potential of making 3rd place and maybe getting to Europe automatically so they’re massive games for them. They’re still big games for us but at this point the league game is as important for Coleraine as a cup game because of their league position. I’m sure they’ll be gunning for the win tomorrow and to catch Cliftonville and get into that 3rd spot.

“They’re on a great run of 12 wins in 13 games and Cliftonville haven’t been hitting the heights lately and that happened a couple of years back when we pipped them to third in the league.”

“We want to win as many games from now to the end of the season as possible and whatever team we put out on the pitch we expect them to put in a performance and get results. That’s the be all and end all of it.

“Obviously there will be a few players not play tomorrow as they could run the risk of suspension for the Irish Cup match, and a few have niggles, but whoever we put in we expect them to perform and get us results. There’s a big squad at Glenavon at the minute and most are fit and raring to go and I’m sure everyone of them feel that they should be in the team and the squad. If they feel like that, when they get their chance, they have to take it and prove why they should be in the team.”

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