Ballinamallard captain James McKenna says he will make his mind up on his future over the next couple of weeks.

The Mallards secured their safety a couple of weeks ago but the skipper has endured a frustrating end to the season following a shoulder injury suffered against Glenavon in February that ended his campaign - and he wants to make sure that everything is right before he commits to another year at Ferney Park.

“I’m going to take another couple of weeks to make a decision on my future,” he said. “I want to make sure that I’m clear of injury before I consider going back because I don’t want to be somebody who is sitting about cheering on from the sideline, I would rather walk away and not be there. When they are cleared up, I’ll speak to Gavin. I would like to repay him for the faith he has in me in making me captain and if he feels he can move the team forward, if he wants me to be a part of that and if I feel physically fit to do it then it is something I will do but as I say I’ll look at it over the next couple of weeks.”

He does admit though that he doesn’t want to finish his time at the club on the note that this season has ended for him personally.

“Every year I decide this is going to be my last year and this year possibly would have been but it’s not the way I would want to finish so that gives me a wee bit more of a push to try and go back. Ideally I want to finish with Ballinamallard on the pitch and with the team doing well,” he commented.

It has all been going so well for McKenna who had impressed having been moved into the centre of the defence by Dykes. He produced some excellent performances as the Mallards climbed away from the relegation zone. But his season then came to an end at Mourneview Park with that shoulder injury and his loss to the team is evidenced by the fact that the side have only picked up three points since he has been out of the side.

“We picked up a string of injuries around that time and really that cost us as we had been hoping to really push on.

“It’s been very frustrating on a personal level as I was starting to enjoy playing a new position in the team at centre half and I’ll be probably itching to get playing again in another week or two and everybody else will be going for a break. It is probably the most frustrating injury I’ve had out of all of them, it was just a freak injury,” said McKenna.

Whether he is there or not next season, McKenna has echoed Dykes’ call for the Mallards to push on next season and not to be satisfied with merely surviving in the Premiership.

“There’s no doubt that it’s good to be safe and it’s a lot easier than the way things went last year, it’s nice to get safe in April. But we have to start now looking at next season and safety can’t just be the aim any more. If we keep just looking at safety then there will come a season when we won’t get there. For the last two or three years the aim has been to kick on and it hasn’t happened but it has to happen now because there is only so long that you can dance around the relegation zone and not get caught,” he said.

And the Mallards captain says that they will be looking to finish off the season on a winning note when they face Carrick in the final game of the season at Ferney Park this Saturday.

“We have one game left now and we’ll just look to finish strong against Carrick. The levels have dropped significantly since we got safe which is something Gavin said that he didn’t want it to happen and he set another target which we haven’t achieved. For any supporter coming down we owe them a performance on Saturday and it would also give everybody going away for a break a lift. The boys will then go away and do a bit of work over the next six or seven weeks before starting up again,” he added.