Institute aiming to bounce back after derby day defeat

Institute manager Peter Hutton hopes his young side can bounce back from their North West derby defeat to Limavady United, when they host Warrenpoint Town, this Saturday.

To be fair the Waterside men were doing well in last weekend’s derby before Philip Lowry came back to haunt his former club scoring a 92nd minute winner to settle the contest.

As for Town they suffered a disappointing 5-3 home defeat to Armagh City, but Hutton is expecting Gary Boyle’s side to be like a wounded animal when they make the trip to the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium, on Saturday.

“It’s going to be a very difficult game and I’m sure we’ll be coming up against a very physical Warrenpoint Town team,” explained Hutton, who watched his side defeat Dergview 5-1 in Tuesday night's North West Senior Cup tie.

“For the players who’ve come in they’re still finding their bearings as well, in terms of the pitch and the big opening spaces.

“But look, it's another challenge and we have to make sure we;re ready for it.

“Losing last Saturday then they’ll be looking for a reaction against us, as will we.

“Look, the Championship isn’t a very predictable league, you don’t know what you’re going to get from week to week, any team can beat any other team on their day, so we just have to be ready for the Warrenpoint game, make sure we’re focused and we’ve trained well this week.

“We also have to get back to the level of intensity in our play that we had in previous weeks, which we didn’t have against Limavady last weekend.”

The 52-year-old felt his side let themselves down in the derby and he expects them to be looking to put things right this weekend.

“There’s always learnings from every game, we know ourselves that we played within ourselves against Limavady and we can do much better,” he conceded.

“Obviously we were disappointed to lose to Limavady but there was a lot of positives to take from that game,

“Look, with Limavady with all the investment and we certainly aren’t a million miles from them, so we’re going to be very competitive this season.

“Yes, we have to have that wee bit of luck with injuries and suspensions and things like that, but I feel we’ll be a match for most teams.

“We are a very young team, they’re learning as we go and that’s part and parcel even managing games, which you could see on Saturday against Limavady we conceded so late and we did similar against Ards a couple of weeks ago, but that’s all part of the learning curve.

“Again I’ve said it before we faced one of the top teams in the division, so we won’t be that far away and we’re going to be a match for most teams.”

The former Finn Harps and Derry City boss has had to virtually sign a new squad and added defender Sean O’Kane.

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“Over the weekend we added young Sean O’Kane from Welders and he’ll be a good addition for us,” explained Hutton.

“He’s another good young player, with huge potential and I’m glad we were able to add him to our squad.”