Ballinamallard Manager Harry McConkey has praised the attitude of his players, despite suffering their first defeat of the season.

The Mallards started the season with a run of four consecutive draws before Dundela visited Ferney Park, where a second-half winner from Rhys Arnett consigned the Mallards to defeat.

Although the wait for a win goes on, McConkey believes that the spirit and confidence of the players remains high.

“The good thing for me at the moment is that I feel the players are buoyant within themselves, and I’m pleased with how much they are giving me,” said the Manager.

“In terms of spirit and fight, you could see that they were giving absolutely everything.

“We conceded two horrible goals that we could and should have avoided, but there was nothing between the teams. They may have edged it a little bit on clear-cut chances, but I think on possession of the ball we probably shaded it.

“We need to stay confident, we need to stay together, and the only way to get ourselves that first win is to go to Warrenpoint now and show that work ethic right through the team.

“We will put our heads down in training and prepare as best we can for them, and go again.”

Ballinamallard’s pre-match plans were thrown into disarray on the morning of the game when three players were forced to withdraw from the squad due to sickness, necessitating a reshuffle.

“Overnight we lost Peter Campbell, Mark Stafford and Patrick Ferry who were all sick and had to withdraw from the game,” said McConkey.

“When you get that, it doesn’t help your preparation, but I thought the centre back three were excellent with two 19-year-olds in Peter Maguire and Shaun McDermott, along with Lee Warnock, stepping in to play Mark’s role in the middle.

“The problems Dundela caused us were mainly through the physicality of Benny Igiehon and the clever Eamonn Fyffe. These two top players will cause a lot of problems against the best defences this season, but overall I thought Peter, Lee and Shaun marshalled them well in open play.”

Pleased

Harry was pleased with the efforts of his attacking players, especially in the opening 45 minutes, but despite their threat they once again struggled to turn their promising play into goals.

“We caused them great problems when we ran at them,” reckoned the Manager. “Their defence were frightened at the pace we had up top between Caolan McAleer and BJ [Banda].

“We matched them with a 3-5-2 and the two lads up top were dropping in and causing them great problems, but for all our set plays and attempts to get that strike on goal, we didn’t finish it off yet again.

“BJ had two great opportunities and was desperately unlucky with the bounce of the ball. We want to make sure, and we are taking the extra touch, and the longer that goes on the more frustrated we tend to get in games.

“We had a good talk at half time, and we were quite confident we would push on in the second half.

“It was a very open start to the second half and they came out on the front foot . Their goal was a spill by our goalkeeper and then we defensively failed to react first.

“While we were not flowing in the same way we were in the first half, we were still very dangerous and both BJ and Ronan [Mc Kinley] had two great chances saved by their goalkeeper.”

The Mallards’ quest for a victory now moves to Milltown where they travel to take on Warrenpoint on Saturday.

The Point were relegated from the top flight last season, but after a shaky start have started to piece together some good results in recent weeks.

“Warrenpoint have taken a while to find their feet in this league,” acknowledged McConkey. “They only took one point out of their first nine, so we can see they have vulnerabilities within their team, but as we know ourselves only too well, it is winning that gives you the confidence to start expressing yourselves, and they have done that in the past two games.

“They do have some quality players and they play a 3-2-4-1 system and that can give them a lot of options and passing combinations, but we feel there is a vulnerability and if we can get them on the back foot, then we can cause them problems. We will be well organised, and we will go there with all guns blazing.”

The Manager is hoping Stafford, Campbell and Ferry will all have recovered from illness and be available for selection, with BJ Banda and Ryan Morris due to be assessed during the week after picking up a few knocks against Dundela.

It is also hoped Darragh Byrne and Ben McCann will train this week and come into contention for selection on Saturday.