Institute welcome league leaders Portadown to the Brandywell

Institute vs. Portadown

Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium

Today, 3pm

Institute can move within two points of first place, and still have a game in hand, if they overcome league leaders Portadown today.

To do that, they will have to show they can recover from their biggest league defeat of the season, a 4-1 loss at H&W Welders on a day when everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for Kevin Deery’s team. ‘Stute led in Belfast, even after a first half red card to Ryan Morrow, and then missed a chance to go 2-0 up when Tiarnan McKinney missed a penalty. ‘Stute then conceded three goals in just nine minutes as the game ended disastrously.

“I think it’s fair to say that,” Deery admitted. “We were comfortable in the first half and I think we had six or seven shots on target in the fist half alone, we had big opportunities, and personally I think we should have been a couple more goals to the good at half time. Then we came out and did quite well; we managed the game well for 15 minutes of the second half after Ryan Morrow was sent off.

“We had a penalty in the 60th minute to go 2-0 up and we missed that before they had a bombardment of set pieces and they managed to get three of their goals from three set pieces. We were disappointed with that element of the game but honestly, the effort and endeavour from my players with ten men was brilliant. It was just that we didn’t defend set pieces well enough.”

Penalties have been few and far between for ‘Stute this season, with last Saturday’s their first league spot kick of the season. They have had three in all competitions and had three different penalty takers scoring just once; Deery admits the penalty miss was the defining moment against a Welders team which had been struggling for form.

“I feel that was the turning point,” he said. “Not even the sending off because we were managing the game quite well. We spent 15 minutes of the first half without Japper and then we spent another 15 minutes of the second half without him, so for 30 minutes we managed it well, we had a penalty and we were still creating chances; Kirk could have scored and Michael Harris had a couple of chances that he could have scored, so we were doing well, but they definitely got a lift as soon as the penalty smashed off the bar.

“Tiarnan came into training the other night feeling he let the group down so it’s really refreshing to see young players taking responsibility, but they’ve all been immense, so we just have to take the positives from the game and there were mountains of them and learn from our mistakes, which I feel we have done well from this season. We just have to do that again and look forward to the Portadown game.”

Growth

‘Stute have bounced back well after setbacks already this season, and Deery is hoping that habit continues.

“We’re always looking for signs of growth and improvement and me and Mo (Mahon) always say that a defeat is a time to learn,” he stated. “I think it will help us. I was worried about the game because I thought that someone was going to try and clip our wings as such.

“We were unfortunate not to be a few goals better off at half time, but now Portadown are coming down with an opportunity to go eight points clear of us. We’re determined to not let that happen because if we win, it goes without saying, we stay within two points of Portadown and we have a game in hand still, so that has to be our motivation this week as a bunch of men, let’s try and get a win to stay in the pack.”