’Stute wary of old boys as in-form Dougherty visits

Institute will be hoping in-form striker Robbie Hume continues his goalscoring run, the front man has netted five times this season.

Donaghy, who also concedes that experienced duo Paddy McLaughlin and Stephen Parkhouse may miss out through injury, was impressed by Gary Simpson’s side when they played each other in a friendly recently.

“Any team who is scoring a lot of goals on a regular basic, which Newbuildings are doing, has to be given the utmost respect, which we will be doing,” stated Donaghy.

“We played them in pre-season and they were very good in fact I was quite impressed and I would say at this stage of the season they would beat the likes of Coagh and Limavady from our league.

“So we are under no illusion it’s going to be a tough, tough test but we will be putting a team out on the pitch looking to win the game.

“We are on a good roll and momentum is important, so we still want to win every game, it’s a local derby and there’s a lot of players who are playing for them who have been involved with ’Stute, and they’ll feel they have a point to prove.

“Ricky Lee did quite well at times but he never got the goals that he maybe thought he would have when he came here, but to be fair to him and other players such as Grant Buchanan, Stephen Curry and Garth Falconer are fantastic lads and they didn’t look out of place, but they probably wanted regular first team football and it was more or less their choice leaving rather than ours.”

Following Friday night’s cup tie, Paul Kee’s side take on Championship One title favourites Carrick Rangers, but Donaghy states no one in the dressing room is looking that far ahead.

“To be fair no one has even mentioned the Carrick game, as staff we have definitely spoken about it about but not in the dressing room and to be honest we are taking one game at a time and that next task is the most important one and that task is Newbuildings.

“Yes they’ll definitely be at least three or four changes to the side, which defeated Limavady, with the view for people proving themselves to maybe get a starting spot against Carrick.

“We have competition for places all over the pitch now, we have nearly two players sometimes even three fighting for one spot, so the likes of Sean Reily, Varma and young Jordan McLaughlin who came on at Limavady, they may get a start.

“We have some players who are carrying a few knocks, but no matter what team is selected we still have to go about things the right way and try to win.”