Ballinamallard United manager Harry McConkey has strengthened his attacking options for the forthcoming season with the addition of former Finn Harps striker BJ Banda.

Banda played a key role as a 17 year old in Finn Harps promotion to the Premier Division and the 23 year old has recently been among the goals for Letterkenny Rovers.

With the Mallards having lost experienced front man Ryan Campbell, the addition of Banda is a welcome one for McConkey who will be hoping that he bring goals to the Ferney Park outfit.

“I think he is a player who will threaten in behind, he has great pace and he has a very good left foot and clearly he knows where the net is,” said McConkey.

“Obviously, we have lost Ryan Campbell so it was important that we tried to find someone to replace that and at 23 years of age BJ is still learning the game.

“He has been enjoying his football at Letterkenny Rovers and he has been scoring goals regularly but he felt he is ready for a new challenge and we are delighted that is something we can offer him. He has looked fresh in training and we are now looking forward to getting him on the pitch,” added the Duck boss.

Ballinamallard will play Limavady United this Saturday and a Derry City Select on Tuesday as their pre-season preparations get underway and McConkey admits that there will be a big focus on games as a lot of the fitness work was put in while preparing for the recent Irish Cup.

“The boys are training hard and we have tried to mix it up, it is more like an in season training than pre-season because they had done a lot of the work in our preparation for the Irish Cup. We are putting a lot of emphasis on matches and building up our game time quicker than we would normally.

“We have Limavady on Saturday and then a Derry City Select on Tuesday,” he said.

Banda joins Colm McLaughlin as the new signings for the forthcoming Championship campaign and while McConkey is happy with his squad, he has not ruled out a further addition or two.

“We have maybe one or two irons in the fire but at this stage we are happy with what we have and we have had a couple of U20 lads who have come in and done well,” he commented.