O'Connor and Griffin set to return from injury

Cork City manager John Cotter remains hopeful that they can overturn a 2-0 first leg deficit in their Europa  League first round qualifier. 

The Leesiders trail Progres Niederkorn following last week's first leg at Turner's Cross.

It was a performance that Cotter knows was deeply flawed, "We’ve looked back on it since. Obviously, we gave away two soft goals, but we have discussed it and had some good training sessions, so we have to be positive going over there.

"That’s the way we have approached it this week and we will look to bring that into the game."

Cotter hopes to be able to call upon the experience of Kevin O'Connor and Shane Griffin for tomorrow's game in Luxembourg, after both missed the home leg through injury.

Both of Niederkorn's goals came inside the first 21-minutes at Turner's Cross, and the Cork boss knows a repeat performance will mark the end of their European run, "When we conceded, we lost our way for a while and a lot of that comes down to confidence.

"We need to be better than that, so we have addressed that and spoken about it and hopefully the players will go out and put in a performance."

As they showed in the second minute of their preliminary round second leg to Cardiff Met University, Niederkorn are susceptible to conceding an early goal. That's something Cotter knows they need to capitalise upon tomorrow night, "We have to go out and try to get the first goal, and see where that takes us, so that’s what we will be planning to do.

"If we can get the first goal, it will open up the tie and I feel we can do that if we perform like we should perform.

"There is a lot of experience in the dressing room and we will be looking to call on all of that on Thursday. We know that an early goal, or even getting the first goal, will open up the tie. We saw signs the other night where we feel we could do that, so we plan to target those areas and try to take the game to them from there."