Irish Cup - Final | Ballymena V Glentoran

Words: Nigel Tilson

M I C K M c D E R M O T T

H E B O S S

Mick McDermott, Glentoran’s head coach, will not be delivering a lengthy monologue to his players ahead of tonight’s clash with Ballymena United.

medals plus Paul Millar (McDermott’s assistant) has been involved in two wins for Glenavon in recent years, so we’ll focus on what we need to do to get the game won.” McDermott was pleased with his players’ performance in the cup semi-final against Cliftonville earlier this week. He revealed: “It was pretty much what we anticipated and the sort of one we prepared the

He is instead aiming to keep things nice and simple because his players have worked hard to be in the final of this season’s Sadler’s Peaky Blinder Irish Cup. “They won’t need to be told very much. We have a number of leaders and some very experienced players in our squad. They’ve worked extremely hard and overcome a few hurdles to get to this final, so I’d be surprised if they needed too much instruction for this

boys for. Larne probably play the best football of any of our opponents in the league, but Cliftonville have numerous ways of hurting teams. “We’ve played them four times since Paul and I came in, so we prepared knowing what was likely

one,” he revealed. “I’m fully aware of Glentoran’s great tradition in the cup and we’ll do our best to add to that. “Reaching the Irish Cup Final this season puts us ahead of our timetable for re-establishing Glentoran at the top of Irish League football but the players fully deserve to be here and I know they will do everything to make sure our supporters have

to be thrown at us. I thought we defended

superbly and didn’t give their better players any time to settle so we shaded what was a very evenly

matched game and deserved to go through.” And the Glens’ head coach is also backing his players to shine on the big stage tonight. He said: “This is a great group and I know they will go into this match with the right attitude. We know our ability should be good enough to beat Ballymena but in a cup final a lot of it is down to whichever team settles best. It will be a strange one, with very few fans in attendance, but when the match starts the players don’t really notice that as they’re focused on doing their job and winning their battles.”

another memorable Irish Cup Final, albeit that the vast majority of them will be at home this year.” The Glentoran gaffer is confident his team will be ready to perform against the Braidmen. He pointed out: “Ballymena were second in the league last season and they won a match in Europe at the start of this season, so they’re obviously a much better team than their league position suggests. “Obviously David Jeffrey has a lot of experience in cup finals so he will know how to prepare his players. But we have a few players with winner’s

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