Faye Loughran wants Glentoran to make a statement of intent when they take on Shelbourne Women in the All-Island Cup at the Blanchflower Stadium on Saturday evening (kick-off 5pm).

The Glens need a win over the Group D leaders to make sure of progression into the last eight of the competition having lost to Waterford last time out.

Loughran knows it won’t be easy against the Dublin outfit, who have won both their group games to date, but the defender says Kim Turner’s side are determined to get the result they need to progress into the latter stages of the competition.

“At the start of the season we set our targets and one of them was to be involved in the latter stages of all the competitions we’re involved in this season,” said Loughran.

“We have had a decent start in the Boyle Sports Women’s Cup and the Sports Direct Women’s Premiership winning all our games so far.

“We obviously beat Bohemians in our opening game in the All-Island Cup before losing to Waterford.

“That was a bit frustrating as not only was it the only game, we’ve lost so far it also means we now have work to do to make it to the quarter-finals.

“But our mentality would always be to go and win every game we play in any way, so it hasn’t changed anything for us that way, we just know now that there is a bit more at stake in terms of the result.

“It will be a tough game, there’s no doubt about it. Shelbourne have won both games so far and obviously got to the semi-finals last year, so they have a lot of pedigree.

“We will go into the game full of confidence though as we have won both games since the defeat to Waterford, not only did we score a few goals, but we played well too.

“We just have to make sure come Saturday we go out and hit those levels again and make sure we come away with a positive result.”

The teenage centre-back is playing in the All-Island Cup for the second year running after making her debut in the tournament with Lisburn Rangers last season.

Loughran says she enjoys the challenge of coming up against different players from another league.

“It was a great experience playing in the competition last year especially as a young player,” said the Northern Ireland U17 and U19 international.

“We did well winning two of our group games and we just missed out on a place in the quarter-finals to Shamrock Rovers on goal difference.

“It has definitely helped me going into this season and especially this competition as you know you’re going to be tested by a lot of quality players who you don’t come up against on a regular basis.

“We have a lot of quality in the Sports Direct Women’s Premiership, but you play against each other regularly so you start to know their game.

“It’s obviously different when you play League of Ireland teams as you maybe don’t know all the players.

“So, you have to do your homework and make sure you are well prepared going into every game.

“At Glentoran the coaching staff have us well drilled and preparation is key. They make sure we have all we need ahead of every game and we work so hard on different scenarios.

“It’s up to us as players to take that out onto the pitch and implement it so that we can get the result we need.

“That will be key for us on Saturday, we have to give it everything we have.”