Stuart King looking to tick off fourth 'cup final' and secure Carrick Rangers' place in European play-off

Gaining at least a point against Glenavon at Mourneview Park this afternoon would be enough for King’s men to set up a semi-final with Crusaders on Wednesday and secure the club’s highest-ever Premiership finish after what has been another season of progress for the County Antrim outfit.

They’ve already collected more top-flight wins and points throughout this campaign than before, but are now targeting taking the final step to avoid Dungannon Swifts spoiling the party.

If Carrick were to suffer a fifth consecutive league defeat to the Lurgan Blues and Dungannon defeated Ballymena United at Stangmore Park, Rodney McAree’s men would leapfrog them into seventh on goal difference.

The Gers have put themselves in pole position by losing just three of their last 10 league matches and King is determined to see the job through.

"I'm so, so proud of my players and we have one more big game to go,” he told the club’s media channel. “After the Dungannon game I told them they'd four more cup finals and we had to win them...they've won three and we have another one we need to win and we'll see where it takes us.

"I will say that our form against Glenavon this season hasn't been good enough. I told them I'm proud of them after the Loughgall game and hopefully I'm saying the exact same thing after Glenavon."

Glenavon are guaranteed to finish the season in 10th, but having lost five of their last six matches, Stephen McDonnell wants to end on a high and is keen to see his side develop a more clinical edge in front of goal.

"It's going to be an extremely tough fixture, but it's one we look forward to,” he told the club’s media channel. “If we play like we did against Dungannon Swifts last weekend then there'll be more games we win than lose.

"It's about consistency in levels of performance now for us and we want to try and capitalise on how in control we are of games. We want to score goals and that's the next piece for us that we're looking to find."