Ballinamallard manager Whitey Anderson is backing his players to bounce back from defeat against Ballymena with a home victory over Warrenpoint under the Ferney Park floodlights on Friday night.

The Mallards attempts at winning three games in a row for the first time this season were halted by a disappointing three goal defeat in Ballymena, but Whitey is not expecting a repeat of the 2-0 defeat to Warrenpoint in early October that the manager and players have all admitted was the low point of their season so far.

“It’s important that we bounce back,” he said. “Hopefully, playing at home on a Friday night we can get off to a good start, and if we can then I believe we can get the result. I think a lot of the players like playing under the lights on a Friday evening, and especially at Ballinamallard there will be a good atmosphere and a good crowd. It’s the last home game before we play in the semi-final of the cup so it is certainly a big game for us. It doesn’t really matter what day you are playing on though, its all about getting the three points. We had the incentive on Saturday to close the gap to Ballymena, Coleraine and Glentoran and we didn’t take it. The incentive this week is to pull away from Warrenpoint even further. Obviously Warrenpoint will see it as a chance to close that gap but its up to us to capitalise on the good form that we did have.” Ballinamallard never looked like getting those three points at the Ballymena Showgrounds, as they conceded twice in the opening 35 minutes to a Ballymena side that were on a dismal run of eight league games without a win. “We have had a good six weeks and they have had a poor six weeks, but we switched off for half an hour and they got the result,” Whitey said. “The one disappointing aspect was the first 30 minutes of the game. We didn’t come out of the blocks at all and Ballymena were very hungry at the start. We just didn’t work hard enough and we weren’t good enough. I told the players that at half time and in fairness the second half was a lot better. Mark Stafford had a great opportunity and if we had got back to 2-1 I think we could have got something out of the game, but the damage was done early on.” Ballinamallard are without two key players for Friday’s match with Davy Kee and Johnny Lafferty both having to serve suspensions having picked up too many yellow cards, but Whitey can call upon Stuart Hutchinson again, who has recovered from a knock picked up against Institute, and also top scorer Anthony Elding who has started training again this week after a five week lay off with a calf injury.