CHRIS SHERRARD DIVISION COMES UP SHORT

LAST season they made history but Peter Thompson believes his current Queen’s University squad is even better.

Fresh from a big knockout win on Saturday, the students chief has his sights set on a “cup final” this weekend.

They moved into round four of the Irish Cup with a slick six-goal destruction of Tobermore to take their tally to 10 goals in two games of the blue riband competition they went all the way to the semi-finals of in 2014.

With their defence of the Match Intermediate Cup continuing against Newtowne later this month you could be forgiven for thinking it’s all about the cups for Peter Thompson’s boys.

But you’d be wrong.

Having finished second in the PIL last season, promotion remains a realistic goal for The Dub side.

And, to that end, it’s back to porridge on Saturday with a crunch clash against title rivals Banbridge Town in South Belfast.

The two clubs have served up some tasty encounters in the past 18 months – and Thompson expects that theme to continue come 2pm.

“Banbridge Town are a very good side,” he told Match On Tuesday.

“Last season they were challengers to ourselves and Dundela and this season they’re going to be right up there again.

“They haven’t started as they would have liked in the league so they’ll be up for Saturday’s game.

“And so will we. We want to make The Dub a fortress so home games are important to us.

“We always look forward to playing Banbridge because there’s plenty of football played by both sides.

“There’s a good relationship between the two clubs, they’ve good people there and we always enjoy playing them.

“But we want to win and we’re in good form to do so.

“I’d say this is one of the strongest squads we’ve had at Queen’s over the years.

“There’s competition for every position and no room for complacency by anyone because there’s someone ready to take their place.

“I had to leave big, big players on the bench on Saturday but that’s the sort of problem you want.

“We did really well last season but, to me, we’re a stronger unit this season.”

The weekend Irish Cup tie against Tobermore required almost two full hands to tally up the goals.

Six of those went the way of the hosts and half of them came from an unlikely source.

Chris Middleton netted a shock hat-trick with Ryan Mccready and Leon Bonnes also on the scoresheet.

The result ensures Queen’s are just one more win away from a potential big-name draw in round five.

But, while Thompson would dearly love such an occasion for his side, he’s urged them not to look any further than the next game.

He added: “It was a very weird game against Tobermore on Saturday.

“We were utterly dominant in the first half and it was some of the best football we’ve played all season.

“My only complaint to the boys was that we’d had 16 shots and only scored two goals. The game should have been done and dusted and we warned them at half-time that Tobermore would come out fired up in the second half.

“They were but we got the third goal and were coasting.

“But then they got a penalty from what can only be described as a bizarre incident and it unsettled us for a spell.

“We scored a fourth but then another mistake gave them another penalty and they scored a wonder goal to make it 4-3.

“Thankfully we went on and got another couple of goals to make the final scoreline a better reflection of a game which we dominated.

“It gets us through to the fourth