Pitch inspection scheduled at The Oval ahead of Irish Cup semi-final between Glentoran and Linfield

They’re due to meet in East Belfast with kick-off scheduled for 7:45pm to decide who will face either Larne or Cliftonville in the showpiece decider, but after heavy rainfall in Northern Ireland over recent days, The Oval will undergo an inspection tomorrow afternoon.

The match is due to be streamed by BBC Sport NI.

Speaking ahead of the game, in-form Glentoran winger Daire O’Connor expressed his desire to secure European football for a second consecutive season.

"Everybody knows there's a good bit of money involved with European football and it's also a great experience for the fans,” he said. “We got to bring them to Malta last year and unfortunately we didn't get through to the next round after losing on penalties.

"I've been involved in it before with Cork and UCD...I've been to Slovakia, Luxembourg, Malta - it's great for ourselves and for our friends and family to go and see different places.

"It's definitely an aim for us.

"That's the goal and anything other than that is probably failure for us.

"I spent two years in Scotland and was thinking that the best case scenario was getting promoted to the Premiership and then you're fighting relegation, whereas you come back here and the standard is very similar, only you can challenge for leagues and get into Europe.

"I can have these experiences that my mates over in England and Scotland can't.

"They are slogging it out in the league and might get a cup run now and again, but the beauty of this league and down south is that you have those aims to play in Europe.

"I think the next step is for an Irish League team to get into the group stages because they've came close.

"That's a dream that's a bit away for us yet but that has to be the ambition of teams in this league."