Coleraine will take nothing for granted says Oran Kearney

The Bannsiders turned over Dean Shiels’ side 5-0 at Stangmore Park earlier this season.

But Kearney, who was left disappointed by what he dubbed a “lacklustre” in parts display at Carrick Rangers last week, has told his side they need to be on it or risk being left frustrated again.

“There’s a certain way that they’ll try and play and the pitch will maybe help them,” said the Bannsiders boss.

“We’ve got to be on it again on Saturday and we’ve got to make sure we go and get a good performance.

“They’ve shown in lots of games this season that they’ve caused teams problems and picked up points along the way.

“I know people will say we beat them well down there but if you look at their results and follow how their doing, there are times they have picked up results and times that they haven’t.

“The way they play football they can cause you problems.”

The Bannsiders put their disappointment at the Loughview Leisure Arena behind them with an excellent victory over Glentoran in the BetMcLean League Cup quarter-finals in midweek.

Goals from Jamie Glackin and Conor McKendry sealed a 2-0 win for the current holders and sealed a place in the last four much to the delight of Kearney.

“I’m obviously very happy," he said.

“We talked about it before the game that we hold this trophy, it’s something we took a lot of joy from winning and it provided a lot of joy to the area and the changing room.

“It’s not something that we want to give up easily.

“To me it’s something we’ve got to go hard at and got to try and progress.

“Big credit to the players as from a tough day on Saturday they bounced back really well and throughout the team I thought there was 14 really strong performances.

“For as lacklustre as we were at times on Saturday we had no passengers tonight.

“To be honest you need that on a night like tonight.”

Kearney was delighted to see his side carry out the game plan to a tee as they punished the Glens at key times and stood firm when they had to.

“Glentoran showed it at different stages of the game that they’re a different animal when they move the ball and be very hard to play against,” he said.

“But credit to our boys, I thought tactically we got it right and they were brilliant.

“They (Glentoran) are a cracking side and the improvements they’ve made and the improvements of the other full-time teams is plain to see with teams Glentoran when you watched that tonight.

“The standard of the game and the standard of football played by both teams was really good and I think the pitch helps with that.

“We know we are going to have ride our luck at times, we know there’s going to be periods of the game we have to ride the storm and we didn’t do that the last time we were up there as we allowed them back in the game.

“We spoke about that at half-time, although it didn’t make one bit of difference, but on the same stretch, at least we battened down the hatches and we didn’t concede during that period which was important.

“From experience, it usually lasts ten or fifteen minutes and then you get on the other side of it and start to create chances again.

“We’ve worked hard on defending and it is paying off and giving us a platform to build on.

“You’ve got to keep them out at one end to do something in the game.”