Institute in for ex-Derry City loanee

Institute will continue to hold talks with ex-Charlton Athletic starlet Mikhail Kennedy.
Institute's Mikhail Kennedy pictured in action against Newbuildings United on Saturday. DER2819-110KMInstitute's Mikhail Kennedy pictured in action against Newbuildings United on Saturday. DER2819-110KM
Institute's Mikhail Kennedy pictured in action against Newbuildings United on Saturday. DER2819-110KM

The ex-N Ireland U21 international, who had a loan spell with Derry City in 2017, played and scored in ’Stute’s 5-1 friendly win over Newbuildings United on Saturday and Quigg is hopeful a deal can be done to keep the front man.

“Mikhail is an absolutely quality player and we’ll do our best to try and get him on board,” insisted Quigg.

“He’s a quality footballer and he told us that he’s really enjoying the camaraderie and the training sessions, so you never know.

“I just want to give the young fella a chance to get back playing and enjoying his football at a decent level. Obviously bigger clubs will come in for him later on, but if we can get him signed up and maybe hold onto him to say January or even longer, that would be fantastic for the club.

“Mikhail is a goalscorer and everyone throughout the game ,not just in the Irish League, but League of Ireland or Premier League in England are all looking for goalscorers and if him and Joe (McCready) could play together I think we have a good match there.

“Look I would love to get Mikhail in, so we’ll have a chat to Bill (Anderson) and the rest of the board to see what we can do and hopefully we’ll get something sorted.”

Quigg also confirmed that goalkeeper Rory Brown, who also played on Saturday at Newbuildings, is likely to feature for ’Stute against Ballinamallard, this Saturday, at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium (KO 2pm), while former Cliftonville and Coleraine midfielder Ruairi Harkin is also training with the club.

“We have a couple of goalkeepers coming in and Ruairi Harkin has had a few training sessions with us, another quality footballer, who has a bit of experience as well,” he added.

“The team and squad that featured against Newbuildings is very, very young, so if we could manage to get someone like Ruairi Harkin in not just for his quality, but for his experience would be great for the squad.

“But look we’ll move onto the Ballinamallard game and maybe both Ruairi and Mikhail will both be playing in that game.”

Quigg was happy with his teams win over Newbuildings thanks to goals from Kennedy, McCready (2), Jamie Dunne and Benny McLaughlin, but admitted the work-out was exactly what his young side needed.

“The first half you know what you are going to get against local opposition, they are going to be in your face and working their socks off and I felt we never moved the ball as quickly as we can,” he added.

“We made four or five subs in the second half, Tommy (McBride), Rhys McDermott, Jamie McIntyre all came on and I thought they were excellent. We started to move the ball that wee bit quicker and you could see their keeper made a host of quality saves, so we could have won by more.

“But to be fair to Newbuildings, it was a great work-out for us and a great facility that they have and we’ll just move onto the next game, which is Ballinamallard, at the Brandywell on Saturday.

“Last Saturday young (Michael) McCrudden got married so we were missing a few players who attended that wedding, while the likes of Dean Curry was away on holidays, but the young players who played at Newbuidlings done really well, but to be fair to the boys they have all worked their socks for the last four weeks and we are doing four nights week, so the fitness levels are increasing each week.

“Hopefully we’ll get another good week’s training ahead of the Ballinamallard game and a good performance at the Brandywell on Saturday.”

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