Busy week for the Bannsiders

Coleraine head coach Ruaidhri Higgins says he and his players are embracing competing on all fronts ahead of a busy week.

The Bannsiders travel to Bangor for an important league game on Saturday before facing Glentoran in a rescheduled Bet McLean Cup semi-final next Tuesday.

Four days later they are at Taylors Avenue for a tricky sixth round Irish Cup tie at County Antrim Shield winners Carrick Rangers.

"It's what we want to be involved in, you want to be involved in as many competitions as possible," admitted Higgins at his weekly press conference on Thursday.

"It's to be embraced and not complained about: we have a good group, we'll be ready to go and I'm sure the squad will be utilised over the next week.

"Why do you want to be in football? Because you want to win, you want to win trophies, so you can't complain about it then when the schedule gets busy and we won't do that.

"We've a good group of players who are ready for the week ahead, starting with Bangor.

"We know how tough a task that's going to be be but we're looking forward to it," he added.

The Bannsiders suffered defeat on their last visit to Clandeboye Park back in October but have added to their squad in the January transfer window.

"We're in a much better place (squad wise) now than what we were six months ago," continued Higgins.

"We're coming towards the end of our second transfer window. People always say after two or three windows you build your own team so we're very close to where we want it to be.

"I know the only really important statistic after a game is the scoreline but, statistically, our last visit to to Bangor was one of our strongest performances in terms of crosses in the box, opportunities and possession in the opposition's half.

"You have to put the ball in the net to get the points but I remember after that game we didn't get too upset because we knew a lot of things we did were positive so we'll not get too caught up about the last time we went there.

"Football is a moments game: it's when you get your moments it's about capitalising on them or when the opposition has there moments trying to stop them from scoring.

"It's in those moments that we have to be calm, make good decisions and show a wee bit of composure and I think that's all that was really lacking.

"We gave away a goal from a set play and a counter attack but I actually think in recent times we've really improved at that side of things so hopefully we can continue that."