Ballinamallard United made a return to winning ways last week with victory and a good performance away to Dundela - and manager Harry McConkey is keen for them to build on that when they host Annagh United at Ferney Park on Saturday.

It has been a tough few weeks for the Ducks with defeat to Ards in the league followed by the abandonment of the game against Institute due to a horrific injury to midfielder Niall Grace which will rule him out for the remainder of the campaign.

However, they bounced back with a 3-1 win over Dundela which pleased boss McConkey.

“It was brilliant to give not only the players and the staff but also the supporters a bit of a lift after the last couple of weeks, and to have won the game and produced a good performance was very pleasing,” said McConkey.

And the display of striker Josh McIlwaine was particularly pleasing for McConkey who now wants him to produce that form on a consistent basis.

“I know Josh’s true potential,” said McConkey.

“We have seen flashes of it in games and we have seen some games when he has been exceptional and now we would just love him to get that consistency of form because he was virtually unplayable on Saturday.

“It meant that everybody benefitted because players ran off him, players ran on to his flick ons and he also destroyed them on the ground inside the box and he finished well. Those sort of games can give you great confidence and we would just love him to maintain that level of form because he is a real threat,” he said.

The big negative to come out of the game though was the knee injury sustained by midfielder Alex Holder. McConkey says that they are waiting on results but felt that it looked bad at the time.

“He is a wonderful kid with great potential and such enthusiasm and a joy to work with, but he has absolutely no luck and fingers crossed that the results of the MRI scan are not as bad as it seemed on Saturday. We just hope that he gets some good news on it,” he said.

Holder joins the likes of Grace, Richard Clarke, Dean Curry and Ben McCann on the sidelines and McConkey is not expecting any to return for the Annagh game.

However, he stresses that he has a strong squad at his disposal and whoever they go with must maintain the level of performance from the Dundela game if they are to climb the table.

“At this point I’m not confident of having Ben, Clarkie or Dean back but the good thing about Saturday was that it reaffirmed the importance of the depth of our squad.

“Whoever we go with we are once again going to have to produce a really good performance because in this league nothing less will do and we have seen that throughout the first 11 games. It doesn’t matter where you are in this league, if you’re not at it you will lose points and we need to be right up for it on Saturday,” he added.

Annagh currently sit fourth in the table but although the Ducks are sitting in seventh spot, a win on Saturday would lift them above their opponents while having a game in hand on those above them.

And McConkey is keen for his side to get into that top four and in the mix when the season reaches the festive period.

“The facts are that at the moment we are seventh in the table, which is very much mid-table, but our performances would indicate that we are better than that and if we win our game in hand we would be fourth and we want to be up there challenging at Christmas time, that’s important for us.

“But, at this moment it is simply about taking it one game at a time and see how the points tot up.”