Preview: Glenavon v Carrick Rangers

Carrick Rangers are the visitors to Mourneview Park for tomorrow night’s re-arranged league fixture (kick-off 7:45pm) just ten days after thumping the Lurgan Blues 6-2 at the Loughshore Hotel Arena.

Ahead of that game Gary Hamilton had warned his players not to underestimate Niall Currie’s side so he shouldn’t have any need to repeat that warning ahead of Tuesday night’s re-match. “The lads know now how good a team Carrick can be if you don’t go and work your socks off and get the work ethic back and go and close the ball down and press them like they did against Linfield and Institute.”

Looking back to the defeat by Larne Gary said “It was obviously disappointing to concede from two set-pieces. The first one was a good ball in and the guy (Flowers) is a foot taller than everybody else and he wins the header. Probably we could have maybe prevented the corners, the first we could have dealt with it better and the second, Paddy Burns is on the by-line with his back to the play and if he gets a shout he can clear it instead of conceding the corner. That’s why talking on the pitch is so important. Then we concede the second – it’s a great delivery again, the sort of thing we’ve been talking about.”

“I thought second half we did really well, we competed. There were two big chances: at 0-0 Stephen Murray has one cleared off the line and at 2-1 he has another chance and those things can change games. There’s doesn’t seem to be any luck or rub of the green coming our way at the moment but we just have to work even harder and try and work our way out of it. They’ve got an opportunity to do that tomorrow night against Carrick.”

Andy Doyle is a major doubt for the game having picked up an ankle injury in a heavy challenge by Chris Ramsey that Gary thought was deserving of a red card. “When we talk about bits of luck and rub of the green, we’ve seen the tackle back and it’s a straight red card. Unfortunately we lose a player and their player stays on the pitch. Those are the types of things that can swing a game because they could have been down to ten men very early in the game which might have helped us. That’s the way it’s going at the minute.”

Andrew Mitchell had to come off at half time with a recurrence of a problem with his lower back and is also a major doubt for tomorrow. James Singleton will be given as long as possible to recover from a painful neck injury that kept him out of the Larne game.