Next up derby away day

The Waterside men face the Roesiders in the Craig Memorial Cup for the second time in a number of weeks and a similar result would do nicely for Donaghy.

“We played Limavady a few weeks ago and the thing about that is they’ll probably be a lot better prepared for us than what they were that day,” stated Donaghy.

“On that particular day their manager was absent as well and I know Aidy (McLaughlin), very, very well, he was disappointed with the result and I think he’ll make a big difference to them, just for technical changes and the players respect him and they’ll probably try that wee bit harder.

“The players will also not like the manner, which we beat them the last time, especially with the amount of chances we had, so I know this game will not be as easy.

“It’s always hard when you are playing a team again in such a short space of time and something always normally gives in the second game, but we’ll be going their confident, it’s a decent pitch, Friday night football again and our lads seem to thrive on it, so we’ll be going to Limavady to give a very good account of ourselves.”

’Stute, who then host Belfast kingpins Glentoran in the Irn-Bru League, next Tuesday night (KO 7.45pm) and Donaghy feels some players will be out to impress against United on Friday to ensure they start against the Glens.

“Obviously there will be people playing for positions, because the Glentoran match in the Irn-Bru Cup that takes place on the Tuesday and hopefully with us playing on the Friday night, it will give us that extra day’s rest for the Glens game,” he added.

“We spoke about it on Thursday night at training and we are hoping to go quite strong against Limavady, because we have a wee bit of momentum at the minute and we want that to continue and on Friday night against Larne, that was the first time this season we had started with the same side for two league games in a row and I feel we need that wee bit of stability.

“When you looked at our bench on Friday night for example we had Joe Gray, Joe McCready, (Stephen) Parkhouse, Dean Carlyle and Graham Crown and there aren’t many teams in the Championship that could boost a bench like that, so the players that are in the team know that they have to be at the top of their game to stay in the side.”

Although promotion this season is the Drumahoe club’s main target, Donaghy was quick to point out no matter what side is selected the squad has enough quality.

“Even if it’s a Craig Memorial Cup tie, or an Irish Cup tie or a league game, we want to carry this momentum on.

“In the last round against Moyola, we made five or six changes and we were a wee bit disjointed, so I don’t know if we’ll make so many changes.

“But even if we do, we always feel that the players coming in are as equal ability, but the players put in a really good shift in against Larne, especially going down to ten men, so we’ll prepare properly during the week and we definitely want to win every competition that we are participating in and the Craig Memorial Cup is just another one.”