Ballinamallard manager Tommy Canning hailed the strength of his squad as his substitutes combined to score a last-gasp winner against Annagh United at Ferney Park.

The squad was already missing several key players with Simon Warrington, Josh McIlwaine, Peter Maguire and Aaron Harkin among those not available for selection, but four second-half changes proved crucial for the Mallards, as Danny Barker and John Edgar linked up in the 93rd minute to end their run of four games without a win.

“I thought our two centre-halves today were so good defensively, as was Alex Holder in the middle of the park, but the best thing was that the players coming off the bench really made an impact,” said Canning.

“Aaron Smyton came on at half-time and gave us good impetus down the left. Gary Armstrong, Danny Barker and John Edgar came on in the second half and Gary was really good in the game, and Danny Barker and John were involved in the winning goal, so credit to those boys.

"That is what you are looking for, people to come off the bench and make an impact and change the game for you. They came off the bench with a good attitude having trained well all week and went out and proved a point after not starting.”

Annagh were on a nine-game unbeaten streak prior to kick-off and still held outside hopes of a promotion challenge, but the Mallards all but ended those ambitions as they battled hard to take the points in a game that often lacked quality in difficult weather conditions.

“It wasn’t our best performance in possession,” acknowledged the manager.

“In that sense, it’s not the way we want to play, but the game and the conditions and the opponents maybe dictated the way the game was going to go. I guess what is really pleasing is that we ground it out. We hung in at 0-0 and John Edgar popped up at the end with a goal that took the points for us.

"It was a strange game. I thought the last 10 or 15 minutes it started to open up a wee bit more. They took off a defensive midfielder, which made things a bit more open for us, and maybe we took advantage.

"We were starting to create chances and make more progress in the final third. John had a half chance before the goal, but when that one fell to him he put it away really well. It was a strange game.”

Canning felt the victory was payback for recent weeks when the Mallards have been the dominant team without securing the points the manager believed their performances merited.

“We have played unbelievably well in the last three or four weeks and got nothing for it, and then we take away three points this weekend. It’s not certainly the way that we feel like we want to play, but nonetheless, I thought the players really, really dug in and they showed a huge amount of character.

"In some ways you would nearly take that all the time if that meant you getting the points.”

Ballinamallard do not have a game this weekend as they wait for the post-split fixtures to be released.

The Ducks have missed out on the top-half finish they were aiming for and currently sit in eighth spot in the NIFL Championship, but the squad still have self-imposed targets to hit over the remaining five games of the campaign. “Once we realised that we weren’t going to make the top six, which was disappointing for the players, at that point we set ourselves targets around having more points than we had last year,” revealed Canning.

“We finished with 52 last year and we are sitting on 45 at the minute, so we have five games to do that. We would also want to finish in seventh place and as close to the team in sixth as we can.

"Those are the smaller goals we have set ourselves and hopefully we can push on and get them,” Canning concluded.