Preview: Glenavon v Coleraine (Friday)

It’s Match 5 in the Dankse Bank Premiership this weekend with Coleraine the visitors tomorrow (Friday) night (NB: kick-off is 8pm).

The visitors are one of three sides unbeaten so far in the opening four games, with one win and three draws. The Bannsiders will be feeling the frustration of knowing they were leading in two of those drawn games until conceding late equalisers, in fact they led 2-0 at The Oval before being pegged back. They did hold on for a deserved 4-2 win against the reigning Champions Linfield at Windsor Park.

Both sides made it safely through to Round 3 of the League Cup on Tuesday night, each bagging four goals in the process.

Gary Hamilton was pleased with his side’s performance against Portstewart. “These games are all tricky,” he said. “Over the years we’ve been put out by teams in these leagues before. It’s their cup final and they give everything they’ve got and the referee’s given them a penalty which was never in a million years a penalty but you find yourself one nil down and you’re thinking oh no, here we go again! It gives them something to hang on to but thankfully the boys reacted well and I thought in the first half they were excellent. Some of the football we played, the chances we created and the goals we scored were very, very good.

“In the second half we took our foot off the pedal a bit, as happens in games like that, but that’s probably not a bad thing with such a big game coming up three or four days later. The first half performance allowed us to conserve the energy a little bit more which hopefully will help us a little bit tomorrow night. At this moment in time we can’t run the risk (of more injuries) as we’re down to the bare bones with bodies as it is. It’s frustrating but there’s nothing you can do about these injuries; I think at the last count on Tuesday night we had eight players out, though one (Kyle Beggs) was cup-tied. We won’t make any excuses, we’ll just get on with it and deal with what’s in front of us and give everything we’ve got to try and get results.”