“Work rate vital at Warrenpoint”

“Before we step out on the pitch we have to be prepared to match their work rate,” says the Glenavon boss.

“There are no easy games, home or away, in the Premiership and we have always found Warrenpoint a tough team to beat.

“They work hard all over the pitch and they have strikers who can hurt you so we know how tough it will be.

“Our aim is to match them in desire and then hopefully our quality will come through. If we play the way we did against Cliftonville then it will not be good enough.”

Last August Glenavon came way from Milltown with a 2-0 win thanks to goals from Rhys Marshall and a Tiarnan Mulvenna penalty.

Warrenpoint beat the drop last season by beating Bangor in the playoffs and they will want to avoid being in that fight for survival again. They have held on to last season’s top scorer Daniel Hughes, who Hamilton tried to bring to Mourneview Park last January.

Hamilton is hoping his side can carry the form they showed on Wednesday night at Ballymena into the Saturday game.

“I got the performance I was looking for,” said the Glenavon boss. “We had the perfect start with the early goal and we didn’t drop our performance levels and really punished them. It was an excellent effort, but there is no point doing that against Ballymena and not producing it again against Warrenpoint.”

Finding a striker and a midfielder before the window closes is still a priority for the Glenavon manager.

“We have been looking for some time for a striker, but so too have Linfield and Cliftonville. They are hard to find and for us it is a case of them fitting into our budget. The fact we have to look outside of the club is frustrating. You try to develop young players to come through but while we have been successful doing that it means we have lost them too as we have seen Gary Lavery go to Cardiff, Robbie McDaid to Leeds, Shayne Lavery to Everton and Conor McKendry to Ipswich. However, we will keep looking.”