Injuries have hurt the spine of my Coleraine squad, says Oran Kearney as Bannsiders prepare for Dungannon Swifts test

The Bannsiders chief has only been able to utilise club captain Stephen O’Donnell on two occasions, whilst Josh Carson, Stephen Lowry and Matthew Shevlin have all been on the sidelines in recent weeks.

They have been joined by long-term absentees Adam Mullan and Rodney Brown – with Lyndon Kane, Andy Mitchell and Graham Kelly also struggling with knocks at various points throughout the campaign.

Coleraine returned to winning ways last weekend with a 3-2 success at home to Loughgall and they will hope to gain some momentum by picking up another victory against Dungannon Swifts this afternoon.

“The injuries seem to be a conveyor belt and we’ve gone through a cycle recently where it’s affected our spine or the real graft aspect of our team,” Kearney said.

“Stevie O’Donnell has only played two games this season, Josh Carson has played eight-odd games this season and Matthew Shevlin the same.

“You take the spine out of our team – never mind a team with a lot more money who have double the amount of players across all areas of the pitch – those three players have played 40-plus games for us the last couple of seasons and have been stalwarts of what we’re about.

“The other one which has hurt us is probably Stevie Lowry as they’re have been so many scenarios that if we had him on the bench we could throw him on for 20 minutes to settle the ship and be that area of calm.”

One player who is definitely missing for today’s encounter is Davy McDaid who was dismissed for a high-footed challenge last weekend.

“I had a good view of it, my heart jumped into my throat about two seconds before contact because Davy has always had that side to him and there’s no point me trying to defend that,” Kearney added.

“Davy has an edge and a lot of people say it’s good to have that edge – and it is – but the edge went over the top and the wrong side.

“We don’t have any complaints with it.”