Following hard on the heels of Wednesday night’s thrilling 3-3 draw against Ballymena United which saw Glenavon fight back to earn a point from being 3-0 down, on Saturday it’s the visit of Cliftonville.

Last season the Reds were one of only two sides that Glenavon failed to register a league win against, the other being the Champions Crusaders. Cliftonville won two of the encounters, the other games being draws so Glenavon can expect a tough game tomorrow but Gary Hamilton has set his sights on improving his side’s results against the top six sides.

“We started Wednesday night really slowly and deserved to go in at the break 2-0 down; in fact it could have been worse but for Johnny Tuffey,” the Glenavon manager told us in his match preview for tomorrow’s game.

“The lads did show great character to come back but I really want them to get off to a good start, not to have to come from three goals behind! We started the Carrick game slowly as well so I hope the lads have learnt their lesson now. If you count the Charity Shield game, that’s three games now when we haven’t scored in the first half and that’s not really like us. I’d like to see us get off to a better start and get our noses in front because the longer it goes on it just gives the other team encouragement.

“We also conceded far too many free kicks against Ballymena and we don’t want to be giving the opposition chances like that. In the end we could have maybe snatched it – I had a chance and so did Batesy – but we wouldn’t really have deserved it based on the first 55 or 60 minutes.”

Gary had special praise for the travelling fans on Wednesday. “The fans were a big help in our comeback against Ballymena. When we got it back to 3-1 they really got behind the players and it really did make a big difference to us and helped drive us on to earn the point. I really want to thank the fans and I hope we’ll have more of the same tomorrow.”