Title far from over - insists Coleraine's Aaron Canning

As the Danske Bank Premiership nears an exciting climax, the centre-back believes Coleraine are tucked nicely behind the champions, seven points adrift of the leaders but having played a game less.

Canning, who netted twice in the Bannsiders’ comfortable win over Institute on Saturday, is adamant there will be twists and turns over the remaining games of the season.

“It’s going to come down to the split, there are no two ways about it. There’s a lot of football still to be played,” insisted Canning.

“I was listening to commentary in the Linfield versus Crusaders game on Friday night and people were saying Linfield had the league won but I don’t think so as there’s a hell of a lot of football still to be played.

“We still have to play them, they have to play the Glens and other big derbies, so there’s a huge amount of football left to play.”

The former Glenavon man was delighted after netting a first half brace to help Coleraine to their sixth win in a row.

“The three points are the most important thing,” he added.

“It’s nice to be on the score-sheet but we knew coming here off the back of the League Cup final, this was always going to be a tricky place to come to.

“The windy weather, ’Stute being up for it and with it being a derby, it’s nice to be going home with the three points.”

The 27-year-old admitted their previous performances against ’Stute this season - a scoreless draw and a 2-0 loss - had been discussed prior to Saturday’s clash.

“Those matches were in the gaffer’s team talk,” he added, “This is my first game against ’Stute this season but I watched those last two games and we were very, very poor in those games.

“However, we knew if we brought what we can we should come out winners and we did which is nice.”

This Friday night Coleraine travel to Larne with a place in the Irish Cup semi-final up for grabs and Canning is already looking forward to the tie.

“Everything is going well for us at the minute but as the gaffer says, it’s about focusing on one game at a time.

“We were thinking about ’Stute this week and that was it. We’ll now think about Larne but we’ll not be looking at Irish Cups, leagues or anything like that, we’ll just be looking game by game and see where we end up at the end of the season.”

Canning has already played alongside Adam Mullan, Gareth McConaghie and Stephen O’Donnell so competition at the heart of the Coleraine defence has been very good season but he knows approaching the business end of the season, they need to remain solid.

“Adam Mullan was a great partner as well this season. He’s a very, very good player but having Stevie in there, he brings that aerial presence and strength and he’s a good talker as well.

“Our options are good and we have Aaron Traynor out at the minute so he has to come back. Lyndon (Kane) is there at right-back and Gareth came off the bench so we are strong at the back at the minute.

“Clean-sheets are what we pride ourselves on and the gaffer is happy with that as well.

“We have also brought in Stuarty Nixon and he’s going to be a hell of a player. I marked him against Carrick (Rangers), and he gave me a tough time. And we also got Curtis (Allen) and he’ll score goals no matter where he plays and that’s what the gaffer brought him in for, to score goals and I think he will.”