Saturday 15th December 2018. Kick off 3.00pm
On Saturday we play Warrenpoint Town for the second time this season, after a draw at Milltown in September, a match that could be said to have represented the start of a turning point in our season to date. We went to Milltown on an 8-match unbeaten run but although we extended that run, it was a very disappointing result when – a John Herron header in front and ‘point down to ten men after Danny Wallace was sent off.
‘point are currently three points and two places behind us so we will be looking for a similar performance to our last meeting at the Oval when a Robbie McDaid hat trick and two goals from Curtis Allen gave us a comfortable 5-0 home win in Ronnie McFall’s second game after rejoining as manager. With McDaid in particular currently on fire all Glens supporters will hope he and Curtis can come up with the goods on Saturday.
Ronnie McFall said on Thursday evening after a busy night at training: “Last week at the Brandywell was very frustrating for me and I’m sure it was for the supporters. Our defending was again the problem as it seems we can't keep clean sheets. Week after week we’ve been consistently losing silly goals from our perspective. Robbie McDaid had a great game. His strength and determination set John Herron for a very good finish for the first goal of the match. McDaid then scored a good, brave header and his second goal was a super finish. But its very frustrating when a striker does his job that well but it keeps being undermined by problems at the other end and. We knew before we went to the Brandywell that Institute play really good football, get it out from the back and pass the ball well. But even so, if you score three goals against any team, you are entitled to expect to win the match, especially away from home. Far too often this season we’ve got ourselves into good, winning positions late in the game only to concede sloppy goals. That’s something we’re addressing both in training and hopefully in the January window.
Last time we played Warrenpoint it was disappointing to concede a late equaliser when they were down to ten men. They’re a decent side and have confounded a few predictions with their recent results so we’ll need to be up for this one from start to finish. For this match we have four suspensions of players who would normally start – Ross Redman, Calum Birney, Joe Crowe and John McGuigan. But Conor Pepper is back after a two match suspension so that’s a boost as we’ve missed Conor’s energy, leadership and his presence in our midfield. Others will now get their chance and also we’ll bring Nigel Prentice and Jack Henderson into the squad along with Mal Smith who’s been in the squad a couple of times recently.”
Saturday's match sponsor is Eastpoint Church. We thanks them for their support of Glentoran.
The Board of Directors at Glentoran Football Club would again request that all supporters travelling to the Oval by private car consider the local residents when deciding where and how to park. Local parking is freely available at the Arches Health Centre.
