Tuesday 8th February
7.45pm Kick Off
Tomorrow night we make our first visit of the season to Shamrock Park to face Portadown in the Danske Bank Premiership.
New manager Paul Doolin has suffered defeat in his first three games in charge; with league losses at home to Crusaders and away to Larne prior to Saturday’s Irish Cup exit at Coleraine.
As well as the managerial change, Portadown have massively overhauled their squad in the January window with nine new signings made and four players departing. The most notable departure was talismanic forward Lee Bonis’ big money move to Larne, with the club bringing in English forwards Elliott Dugan and Billy Steadman to try and offer support to Adam Salley.
In last season’s meeting between the sides at Shamrock Park, the Glens eventually ran out 3-1 winners. With Connor McMenamin having scored after just 2 minutes, the game appeared beyond the home sides reach just half an hour in when defender Greg Hall was sent off for handling on the line and Hrvoje Plum despatched the resulting penalty. The Ports did threaten a surprise comeback, though, with Bonis taking advantage of a defensive mix-up just after half time and several presentable chances went begging before Jay Donnelly guided the ball home after 66 minutes to kill the game and secure a 3-1 victory.
Portadown are ten places and forty-two points behind the Glens. However the Glens won’t take anything for granted tomorrow evening. Memories remain of our meeting in October when twice Portadown equalised at the Bet McClean Oval, through Michael Ruddy and Lee Bonis after Conor McMenamin and a Jay Donnelly penalty had given us the lead in either half. However our December meeting was a more comfortable afternoon. Michael Ruddy (again) gave the Ports a very early lead, but Jay Donnelly (2) and Conor McMenamin gave the Glens all three points.
Mick McDermott: “On Saturday at Queen’s I thought we did more than enough to win the game comfortably. The couple of early goals settled is down quickly and throughout the game we created plenty of chances. Also the quality of the goals was very high. It was important that the likes of Ben Cushnie and Michael O’Connor got a chance to play as they clearly deserve it. It’s only the form of other players that’s kept them out in recent weeks. They both took their opportunity very well. Also it was good to see Marcus get a good hour under his belt while giving Bobby a deserved rest.
This week puts a heavy workload on the players, but we’ll go to Portadown fully focussed. We trained well on Sunday and this afternoon, so everyone is raring to go, and we’ll put out our strongest team tomorrow night.”
