Nicholl’s menreturn home

Derry have had a great start to the new season with three straight wins against Ards, Rainey and Malone and now are three points clear at the top of the league.

It has been a number of years since Instonians have tasted victory against City of Derry home or away. The two games played between the teams last season resulted in two easy Derry victories.

They defeated the Belfast men at Shaw’s Bridge in the Ulster League this time last year and they defeated them again when they met in the All Ireland League just before Christmas, with the Judges Road outfit coming out on top with a bonus point victory.

Instonians went on to finish second from bottom of AIL Division 2A last season and were relegated to AIL Division 2B along with bottom team Clonakilty and third from bottom Thomond. City of Derry finished the season pushing for promotion and still in contention with two games remaining.

Head Coach Mark Nicholl commented earlier this week: “We now have six of our next eight games at home stating with Instonians and Queens in the Ulster League before our first AIL Fixture against UUC on Saturday fortnight at Judges Road.

“We have a few injuries at the moment including Richard McCarter and Stephen Corr with Sam Duffy not resuming full training for another few weeks.

“We also picked up a few knocks last Saturday so we will give some of the boys a rest on Saturday to have a look at a few other combinations. Ashley (Blair) and I are delighted with our start to the season but we have to keep working hard at training as there a number of aspects to out game that need to be improved.”

City of Derry Squad: Chris Shields, Steven Jefferson, Cathal Creggan, Stephen Duffy, David Ferguson, Paul McFeely, Brian Prue, David Houston, Chris Cooper, Ross Scott, Adam Bratton, Tom Patton, Richard Baird, Andrew Semple, Richard McCarter, Richard Peoples, William McCleery, Adam Parke, Ryan Campbell, David Funston. David Graham, Jack Caithness, Peter Henderson.