Oran Kearney is hoping for some light at the end of the tunnel on the injury front as he admitted the exertions of a three-game week took its toll on Coleraine last Saturday.
With six members of his squad currently on the sidelines Kearney admitted his side looked "toothless" as they went down 2-0 at Crusaders bringing their 14-game unbeaten run to an end.
After their draw with Glentoran and a win over Newry City the Coleraine boss felt the trip to Seaview was a game too far for his players.
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"We don't scream and shout from the rooftops about injuries and everything else that goes with it but it has been challenging over the last couple of weeks," said Kearney.
"We had three probably usable subs on the bench on Saturday, there have been other weeks when we've only really had one.
"It's been very much the same group of fellas who have gone to the well over the last three weeks or so.
"That's fine when you're going Saturday to Saturday, but on Saturday it just looked like a bridge too far.
"In an ideal world Andy Scott shouldn't be playing, he came to us fit enough but without a pile of games behind him.
"With the volume of minutes he's put in over this past week he was like the Tin Man in the first ten minutes against Crusaders.
"You could tell he was under the weather from that point of view.
"We didn't really have the personnel so he had to go that way to start with.
"We conceded a bad goal which gives them an adrenaline boost which was what we were searching for on a day like Saturday as it would have given us something to hold on to and made it extremely hard for them.
"We looked toothless and we haven't done so in quite a while.
"People talk about the run and everything else, but it's not about that we've been in good form, our performance levels have been really good, and have been for quite a while, but that performance was nowhere close."
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