Ballinamallard manager Harry McConkey is hoping that his side can return to winning ways in the league this Saturday when they host PSNI at Ferney Park.

The Ducks have endured something of a blip with no league wins since Boxing Day and only two points from those four games while last week’s away game against Knockbreda was called off shortly before kick off as Storm Dennis swept the country.

McConkey admits though that the referee made the right call on the game.

“We had prepared ourselves well during the week for the Knockbreda game and it is a huge disappointment when you do that and put so much emphasis on it and it is then called off.

“You were just at the hands of Storm Dennis, you can’t control any of that and there is no doubt that it was the right decision to call the game off before kick off.

“I had been out on the pitch and the referee agreed to start the game but then as we were going in to get changed the heavens opened and there was driving wind and sleet and the pitch quickly had more water on it,” he explained.

The focus now is on this Saturday’s meeting against tenth placed PSNI and McConkey knows that if his side can play at the desired tempo then they will have every chance of picking up the three points.

“They have had a wee bounce with new manager Glenn Taggart. They had a great result away to Ards and they brought a few new faces in during the window.

“Our gameplan this week though will be exactly the same as last week.

“We have tried to up the intensity at training and if we can play with a good tempo against the teams in the lower regions of the league I do believe we are well on our way to a good result.

“ If we don’t and we get sloppy or we fall below par we have seen how we have got egg on our faces so many times this season.

“I feel the boys are still hurting from the last result and they are determined to put things right. The other big thing is that we want a really good game before we go into the cup game against Ballymena,” he added.

Every team can usually expect to go through a blip at some stage in the season and McConkey feels that you have to continue looking forward and is hoping that his side will turn the corner and can move positively into the remainder of the campaign.

“You can’t dwell too long on things, you just have to focus straight away on the next game. It is about one game at a time and dealing with the game that is in front of us.

“For us, we have two home games in the next couple of weeks and we want to try our very best to perform in both of those and then hopefully give ourselves a lift for further on.”

Callum Moorehead remains on the injury list for the Mallards but other than that McConkey should have a full deck to pick from on Saturday with Jason McCartney and Duwayne McManus having shaken off knocks.

And the squad has also been boosted by the return of Darragh McBrien and Micheál Glynn following GAA commitments.

“We have Darragh and Micheál back in and there is no question that they are like two new signings because we had not planned for them due to their MacRory Cup commitments but unfortunately for Dom and the boys that ended sooner than anticipated.

“The boys know though that they have been away for a long time and they have a lot of work to do to re-establish themselves with the squad,” he commented.