Institute expected to make changes for North West Senior Cup encounter against Portstewart

Recent signing John Connolly may get his first start in goals and young midfielder Joel Gorman could also feature, in a tie, that Donaghey insists he wants to win.

“We’ll probably make two or three changes at least for the Portstewart game,” he stated after watching his side narrowly see off Dundela, on Saturday.

“I want to give players game time and I want to see a few lads who I maybe haven’t seen a lot of, but listen the game is in the Brandywell and I want to win every game we are playing in. I have never gone into a game where I didn’t want to win it and as I said winning becomes a habit, so if we could win on Tuesday night that would be three wins on the bounce and we would take that win into the Harland & Wolff game.

“But yeah on Tuesday night we’ll be taking the game very seriously and as I said while we are going to make a few changes we’ll still have a team capable of hopefully winning the game.

“It might be a bit too early for Burkey (Cormac Burke), Shaun Doc (Doherty) is carrying a bit of a hamstring injury, so does he need to play on Tuesday, if it was a league game he probably would play, but look we’ll wait and see. I’ll probably see a bit more of Joel Gorman and I don’t mind having a longer look at him and seeing what he’s about.”

Another man who could have earned a place in this evening’s starting eleven is winger Jamie Dunne, who came on against Dundela and played his part in the win.

“I have known Jamie Dunne since he was 11 years of age, he gets you high up the pitch, he has got a wee bit of spark in him and while he needs to get fitter, he still created a chance and also created a chance for himself, so he caused them problems and his and the team’s game management in the closing minutes was OK,” he said.

“However I have to admit that half-in-hour period from 45 minutes to 75 minutes we had to work hard and throw our bodies on the line and we did that superbly.”

The former Cliftonville assistant manager, who conceded that he had some ‘nice type of nervous’ on Saturday morning, was thrilled for the players that they managed to secure their second win in a row, especially against an experience side.

“I was texting someone on Saturday morning and told them that I felt a wee bit nervous, but I also told them that I felt it was good nervous, so look I have been in the dug-out more than 1,500 times, it has been my life since I was 16 and football has been good to me, so look, now that the game has finished, I’m happy and I’m obviously happy with the result,” he added.

“Look, any back to back wins in this league is massive, you look at the table now you are three points off, it was doom and gloom a week ago but since then we have had two wins on the bounce, it’s a credit to Gary (Forth), Eddie (Seydak) and the lads at Loughgall and the boys have continued it on today (Saturday).

“Winning becomes a habit and if you have to get that wee bit of luck now and again, then so be it. Look I dare say we won’t get luck in other games, so we’ll take it when we get it and today we got a bit of luck.

“The application and the way that the boys wanted to take things on board I’m delighted with, but I’m under no illusions we still have a lot of work to do.”