Saturday 24th November 2018, Kick Off 3pm
On Saturday we make our first visit of the season to Stangmore Park to play Dungannon Swifts.
Our last visit was a drab, scoreless draw in the last game of 2017 but no fewer than seven of the players who turned out for us that night have left the club. Our last meeting was a 2-1 win at the Oval with goals from Calum Birney and Curtis Allen.
Swifts are sitting in tenth place and have won just two league games this season but play us on the back of a good Bet McLean League Cup penalties win against Cliftonville on Tuesday night. New manager Kris Lindsay seems to have steadied things well after a poor start to the season so we will need to be focused from the very start to get an away win and bring an end to our decent poor run of results.
Ronnie McFall: “Yet again on Tuesday night at Ballymena we lost points because of unforced, unnecessary mistakes when we had done well to get into a strong position. I thought we were pretty dominant in the second half up to that point and had scored a good, well worked goal to equalise and were playing for the win. It was definitely a penalty to Ballymena but there was no need for it and that frustrates me. We’ve lost far too many late goals and points this season from strong – often winning – positions through sloppy defending and lack of concentration and that won’t be accepted. The lads we brought in during the summer have all done very well and I’ve told the Chairman – and he has agreed – that we need at least three good players for the first team in the January transfer window. We are actively working on that now and the supporters can rest assured that we won’t rest until we’ve got what we need.
In the meantime I’m pleased we have John Herron back on Saturday. His presence will be a benefit to us but it also allows me to rejig a couple of other areas in the team. Robbie McDaid had to come off against Ballymena. He’s doubtful for Saturday but we’ll give him every chance to make it as he’s been playing very well and is an important player for us.
We’ve won the two games we’ve played against Dungannon since I’ve been here and we’ll be sending the team out top get the good win we need. As long as we keep our shape and don’t make any silly individual mistakes I’m confident that’s what we’ll get.”
