Victory could ignite Institute's season admits boss Brian Donaghey

In recent weeks the Drumahoe side have suffered a narrow loss to Loughgall and gained a battling draw at Ards, but Donaghey feels securing three points would be massive for his players.

“One big result would be great and if it came on Saturday then I feel it would definitely kick us on,” insisted the Stute boss.

“Winning becomes a habit, losing becomes a habit and I feel for the players because they are giving absolutely everything and deserve better.

“The boys have bought into everything that we have done and, as I said, they probably deserve more points than they have. I think if we do get a head of steam up then we’ll be okay.

“We definitely look more potent in attack, we have a lot more options in the final third now and that’s something I maybe haven’t had until the last few weeks.

“The striking talent that we have now available is very good. We have got six players playing for three positions probably which is good and hopefully it spurns a lot of people on.”

The ex-Cliftonville number two watched Harry McConkey’s side a few weeks ago and was impressed with what he saw but he’s hopeful that his players can cause them problems.

“I felt against Loughgall we were very good but got nothing out of the game. At Ards last Friday night we got a point, and you’d probably taken a point before the game, but move onto Ballinamallard on Saturday,” he confirmed.

“Ballinamallard are a very, very good team and they’re probably at the strongest that they have been in years.

“They signed (Mark) Stafford and they have brought Evan Tweed in, who was a target for myself. I watched them last week and it’s probably the best I’ve seen them play in a while.

“They seem to be getting their bigger players back; Ben McCann is back and they are at full strength apart from Ryan Morrow, who got harshly sent-off last week because it didn’t look that a sending off to be fair to him, but bar him they’ll be near enough full strength.

“But listen, we’ll have no fear facing them. They’ll be coming to the Brandywell. We’ll be organised and we’ll hopefully get a few more boys nursed back from injury, someone like Shaun

Doherty, who wasn’t involved at Ards. We might have a few players patched up but we’ll definitely have a lot more experience on the pitch.”

One man who could be pushing for a place in the starting line-up is striker Cormac Burke who came off the bench at Ards last Friday night and Donaghey admits it was good to see the front man back involved.

“We’ll see how he goes at training and then make a judgement call on Saturday,” he added.

“He trained on Tuesday and had a bit of a reaction on his calf but I think that’s just because he has tried to cram in a lot of stuff in the last few weeks to get back. We’ll see how he is closer to kick-off.

“Stephen Doherty trained on Thursday night and we’ll see if we can get him back gradually. He has started to run again this week, so he might take part in training soon.

“Look it’s great to see the boys coming back as it gives us a lot of options and even last week at Ards, when you looked at the bench, we had a lot of senior players on the bench, something we’ve never had since I have come in.”

The ’Stute boss says his team aren’t far away from getting that positive result and if they cut out costly individual errors he believes they are a match for anyone.

“I don’t think there’s a terrible lot wrong with our game apart from the individual mistakes,” stated Donaghey.

“I think we have been well in games and have looked more forward thinking in the last couple of weeks, especially with the new players coming in. I feel for the players because no one goes out to make a mistake but hopefully if we just cut out those errors that will mean we can get a foothold in the game.

“If we can get a proper grip of the game and press home our advantage then hopefully we’ll start getting a few wins over the next few weeks.”