Hamilton believes Lurgan Blues can progress
Proud man: Gary Hamilton GLENAVON manager Gary Hamilton believes his team have a fighting chance of creating a major upset next week and overcoming Molde to reach the second qualifying round of the Europa League.
The Lurgan Blues were outstanding in Wednesday night’s 2-1 first leg victory at Mourneview Park against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side with Rhys Marshall and Josh Daniels on target for the home side.
While quite rightly basking in that success, Hamilton would love to finish the job in Norway in the return, though knows all too well his players face a tough test.
“We are not getting ahead of ourselves and it will be a massive task to get into the next round but we have given ourselves a chance,” said Hamilton.
“We have given ourselves something to play for and the players deserve it. It’s a superb feeling. We’ll go there and give it our all and hopefully sneak a historic win.
“I’ve been involved in football from the age of nine or 10 and I’m now 37 and that’s the most proud I’ve ever been of a team and being involved in a team in my career.
“I know you get nothing for it because there is still the second leg to go but it’s a sense of pride for the players that they can go out and beat a club of the high standing of Molde.”
Numerous scouts from English clubs were at Mourneview to watch Molde’s talented young players but it was Glenavon’s gifted stars such as Mark Sykes and Marshall who shone. Both were praised post-match by Manchester United legend Solskjaer.
Hamilton added: “Hopefully those scouts will be going away looking at our players thinking they aren’t bad for part-time players. Every one of them was outstanding against Molde.
“I’ve seen (Irish League) teams over the last few years beat sides from Lithuania, Luxembourg or the Faroe Islands or whatever but I cannot remember for a long time a result like this.
“I remember when I was young Linfield beating Copenhagen at Windsor Park. That’s the last time I remember an Irish League side beating a team of this standard.
“We had to be disciplined and get in our shape but on the flip side we created a lot ourselves and had some great passages of play and breaking at pace. The second goal was a great example of that. I’m so proud of them.”
Solskjaer spoke of his disappointment at losing, saying big improvements would be needed to overturn the deficit in Thursday’s second leg in Norway. Molde are still favourites but Glenavon will fancy their chances after their display at Mourneview. BARRY Gray has moved to quell speculation that Conor McDonald is set to depart Cliftonville.
The midfielder’s absence from the Reds’ line-up for Thursday’s Europa League clash with Nordsjaelland further fuelled rumours of a return to the League of Ireland, with St Patrick’s Athletic understood to be interested in the former Dundalk man.
Gray, however, insists that McDonald — who was instrumental in the second half of last season after arriving during the January transfer window — is staying put.
“I don’t know where the St Pat’s thing has come from, the club knows nothing about it and the player knows nothing about it,” he explained.
“I know people will see that he was an unused sub and think they’re putting two and two together but the fact is he missed a lot of our pre-season because he was over in America for a long patch.
“If you put in a player who’s missed a lot of the preparation and whose fitness isn’t at the level of everyone else, you’re almost forcing a substitution on yourself at some point.”
Two players who did start the game, which the Reds lost 1-0 to their Danish counterparts, were debutants Conor McMenamin and Ryan Curran, with Gray more than satisfied with both.
“There’s always a bit of a transition when you come into a new club but it was probably even more difficult for them because of the way we’ve been training over the last few weeks,” added the Solitude chief.
“We’ve been working on shape and being more defensive than we would usually be and they’ve had to take a lot of information on board from me but I thought they both did very well.”