Duo aim for senior status

Institute travel to fellow strugglers Lisburn Distillery as they aim to retain their Carling Premiership status, while City of Derry travel to Galway to face Monivea in their must win AIL Round Robin Qualifier.

Having suffered a shock 17-9 home defeat to Seapoint in their first round robin match, Bevan Lynch's side need to secure a victory this Saturday and the coach also believes they need to pick up a bonus point if they want to harbour any chance of regaining senior status.

On the plus side for Derry, centres David Funston and Jared Bennett are expected to be fit after they missed the Seapoint game, while Simon Logue and Bob McKillop are also likely to be fully fit for this weekend's crucial match.

"Our whole season hinges on the Monivea game," said Lynch.

"However we have lived with this pressure all season, after we lost our opening league fixture of the season we have had pressure every match we have played in, so we should be able to cope with it.

"I want the players to be mentally focused on the job in hand, because I don't think we mentally were focused enough in the Seapoint game, because we had a lot of errors and didn't stick to our patterns of play."

As for the Galway men they had an empathic 27-14 win over Richmond, but despite this Lynch believes that his side should remain upbeat going into the game.

"I wasn't too surprised that Monviea beat Richmond in the first match, I was surprised by the score-line, but they are a good side and we'll have to roll our sleeves up if we want to win the game," he added.

"Whenever we beat them early in the season, their scrum half had an injury and didn't play, so their set-play struggled that day.

"Nevertheless we know it's going to be a cauldron of an atmosphere at their place, because the whole village comes out to support their side, so we'll also have to be prepared for that."

As for Drumahoe club, Institute who defeated Glenavon on Tuesday night, travel to Lisburn Distillery knowing victory could help ensure Carling Premiership football in Londonderry next season.

However they are coming up against an in-form Whites side, who after drawing with Ballymena United on Saturday have impressively secured 14 points from their last six league matches.

Nevertheless skipper Ruairi Boyle is only worried about how he and his team-mates perform on the day.

"You have to give Distillery a lot of credit because to be honest their run is championship winning form, but we just need to worry about ourselves," he said.

"Every game from Saturday to the end of the season are cup finals to us and everyone at the club needs to stick together and try to get a few results strung together."

The Waterside men go into this weekend's match at Ballyskeagh with a number of key players missing.

Striker Kevin Ramsey continues to struggle with an ankle injury, but he along with Ruairi McClean and Thomas Wray all miss the game through suspension, however Eamonn Seydak returns from suspension to the squad after he missed Tuesday evening's victory over Marty Quinn's side.