Institute to face Knockbreda at Brandywell tomorrow night

The ’Stute boss is wary of facing the Belfast men for a second time in the space of 10 days, but he’s confident his team can pick up another three points despite admitting it’s going to be another close encounter.

In their first meeting at the Brandywell just over a week ago, the Drumahoe club raced into a 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Cathair Friel and Mark McFadden before Dylan King’s own goal on 83 minutes made it a nervy finale for ’Stute.

"Yes it will be a huge task for us because it's always difficult playing the same team twice in 10 days,” explained Donaghey. "You end up knowing too much about each other and it's not often that the team which wins the first game also wins the second match, but I'm hoping to be proved wrong, because I'm expecting us to win on Tuesday night.”

Institute suffered a disappointing 2-0 home defeat to title chasing Dundela on Saturday and Donaghey is expecting to see a reaction from his players this evening.

"We can't feel sorry for ourselves and that was my parting shot when I was speaking to the players after the game. We have to dust ourselves down and get on with it,” he added.

"Dundela will be up there challenging or even winning the league and they were more streetwise than us. Credit to them as they deserved to win but Tuesday comes quickly and we have to regroup.

"We got the boys back in on Monday night and they are looking forward to the Knockbreda game.

"We didn't play well in the first half against Knockbreda, but when we took the lead we seemed comfortable enough.

"To be honest we'll need a much improved performance than what we got on Saturday if we're going to replicate the result against Knockbreda from a few weeks ago.

"Games are coming thick and fast. We've three games in a week and that was the first one out of the way so we'll try to accumulate as many points as possible over the next two games.”

With Shaun Doherty out for a number of weeks with an ankle injury and skipper Cormac Burke getting substituted with a hamstring problem on Saturday, the Waterside men are down bodies but Donaghey feels centre midfield is the one position in his squad that he has enough cover and stated that a number of players will now get their chance.

"Oisin (Devlin) came in on Saturday, Alonzo (Clarke) is just back from Covid and we knew he wouldn't last the 90 minutes on Saturday but he should be fine,” explained the ’Stute boss.

"Andy Whiteside is chomping at the bit, as is Orrin McLaughlin, so we should be okay in midfield.

"We have got enough bodies and hopefully Burkey (Cormac Burke) isn't as bad as first feared as we got him off quite quickly. I think it's a twinge as opposed to any kind of tear. It could also be a bit of fatigue because he's been playing week to week with an injury and maybe not training, but we'll see how he is closer to Tuesday night.”