Derry City young striker joins Institute on-loan

’Stute have signed young Derry City striker Caolan McLaughlin on-loan, while midfielders Mark McFadden and Jake Morrow and defender Ciaran Deery have all joined on permanent deals with Donaghey confirming he intends on bringing more new additions into his squad.

“There has been massive strides off the pitch in terms of securing signings and we hope to have six or seven players coming in, the squad needs it,” stated Donaghey.

“Striker Caolan McLaughlin, who made his first team debut for Derry City last season, has joined on-loan while Mark McFadden who, like Caolan, played in the Derry City U19 team which won the Enda McGuill Cup a few months, has also joined. He’s a box to box midfielder who gets goals and is really energetic so I expect he’ll get about the pitch for us.

“Jake Morrow is back and we know what he can do. He can pick a pass and hopefully give us that creativity in the final third. Ciaran Deery is signing from Trojans. He’s a young, strong centre-half, who has done really well in training and wants to test himself at the highest level.

“When you look at what the players did against Ballinamallard you think, ‘Okay, we’re going in the right direction’ so by adding a bit more quality, more experience and a strike force, then we should be okay.

“I think everybody is looking forward to the players coming in. The squad was probably dreading new players coming in as they were going to be looking over their shoulder, worried about who’s going to miss out, but now I have the players ringing me and asking, ‘Right, who’s coming in?’

“They’re excited about getting a lift out of the new signings. I’ll definitely get a lift as it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for quite a few months.”

On Monday, the Drumahoe club travel to bottom side Queen’s University (KO 2pm) and Donaghey knows how important the game is to his team.

’Stute currently sit seven points clear of Peter Thompson’s side and one behind third from bottom Dundela and the ex-Cliftonville assistant boss believes if his side can reproduce the display which saw them lose narrowly to Ballinamallard United in their last outing, then they should get a positive result at The Dub.

“The Queen’s match is huge, it was always going to be huge,” insisted Donaghey.

“Both Queen’s and Dundela lost on Saturday and it’s mad to think we could go above Dundela again if we win at Queens and they drop points against the Welders, which will be a tough game for them.

“No one has really blown us away. Newry have been the stand out team for me so far, but Ballinamallard are second and while they might say they managed the game well, man for man it did not look like they were second and we were second from bottom.

“Look, if we play like we did against Ballinamallard then we’ll be okay against Queen’s. We’ll get a result but we must work hard towards that.”