CLIFTONVILLE boss Paddy McLaughlin insists their preparation will be normal ahead of the visit of Portadown on Tuesday evening. 

The Ports make the trip to Solitude (7.45pm kick-off) in the rearranged league encounter from last month, looking for some valuable points that will move them further clear of Warrenpoint Town at the bottom of the table. 

McLaughlin believes that the Ports are playing good football under boss Matthew Tipton and although he acknowledges their results haven’t been great, he is adamant Tipton will take comfort in the fact that they aren’t being rolled over easily. 

“You take every game as it comes,” admits McLaughlin. 

“I know it’s very cliched, but I think we understand and see results every week in this division. If you don’t prepare for any team in this league, you’ll get punished for it. 

“We go as normal; we go again, and we prepare like the next game is always your biggest and toughest. We’ll prepare for a tough game, which I’m sure it will be. 

“Tippy (Matthew Tipton) has got them playing good football. I know he will be disappointed with the results, but nobody is blowing them away. 

“They’re making it difficult for all teams and no doubt they will make it difficult for us as well. We prepare as normal, and we prepare the same for Tuesday night the same as we do for every other game, and it will be a tough game.”

Rory Hale is a doubt for Tuesday’s encounter after limping off during the Reds’ comeback win over Glenavon on Saturday.

McLaughlin will assess the squad before deciding whether to leave the midfielder out, but is erring on the side of caution. 

“When you see somebody limping off, especially Rory Hale who plays with his heart of his sleeve, you know he’s hurt,” said the Reds’ boss. 

“We might have to go without Rory on Tuesday night, but you never know - we will assess it over the next day or two and we’ll see where we are at and see what is available. 

“The midweek games and two games a week is a lot for players to take on, playing at the high intensity they play at. You will pick up knocks and niggles along the way and hopefully Rory won’t be too bad.”

The Derry native was delighted to see his side learn from defeat to Ballymena United last weekend as their persistence paid off with a quick-fire double to defeat the Lurgan Blues on Saturday and believes the debrief from the week before paid off. 

“It was our debrief in the changing room after the game last week,” McLaughlin recalls. 

“As much as we were bitterly disappointed with the result, if we had have equalised, we thought we could have went on and won the game because we dominated so much in the second half. 

“As well as Glenavon defended, we probably dominated the ball without dominating chances, whereas we dominated a lot of chances last week. I felt if we get an equaliser, we’ve always got a chance because when you’ve got the attacking options and the forwards we have at the club, you always feel you can go and win the game when you get back all square. 

“It’s the same as last week: we felt if we got an equaliser then we could go on and win it. We didn’t get it, but we got the equaliser this week and we kept pushing for

the winner and fair play to the boys. They turned the game on its head whenever it looked like they were not just going to come away with a draw, but with nothing.”

McLaughlin was pleased that Declan Dunne’s first half error at the weekend didn’t prove costly and has backed his goalkeeper to learn and move on from the mistake. 

“We had a very quick conversation,” he revealed. 

“The thing about centre-forwards is they can miss chances and people don’t notice it; a midfielder can give the ball away and people don’t notice it;  a centre-half can miss a header and people don’t notice it.

“A ’keeper is going to make a mistake - that’s the pressure of their position and there is no bigger man than Declan. He’s got big broad shoulders and he’ll understand, learn, and move on and he’ll be a better ’keeper for it.

“Fair play to the boys, more would have been made of it if we had lost the game. But fair play to them, they pulled one out of the bag for him and I’m sure he’ll learn that sometimes gambling and playing out from the back is worth it at times, but sometimes it’s not. 

“He’s been forgiven for his performances throughout the season. Up until now he has been superb for us and it’s been a great week for him. A lot has gone on in his life and the best day of his life has just happened. You can understand, he’s allowed one mistake – that’s it for the season.”