BALLINAMALLARD will approach Saturday’s game against league leaders Dundela with “confidence, energy and belief” as they look to achieve their longest unbeaten league run in almost ten years.

An injury-time winner from Aaron Harkin earned the Mallards victory over Knockbreda to make it four wins and two draws from their last six league matches. The last time the Mallards went seven league games without defeat was in the Premiership in 2014, and they can equal that feat with a win or a draw at Ferney Park in Tommy Canning’s first home league game in charge.

“We will approach that game with all the confidence, energy and belief that we are entitled to have given the run we are on,” said Canning.

“I think it’s a brilliant game for us on the back of the Knockbreda game. It is a game where we can let the shackles off and go and express ourselves and go into the game with a bit of confidence. We know we have to work extremely hard to get anything out of games, whether that is Knockbreda at the bottom of the league or Dundela at the top.

“The approach to it doesn’t really change. We have to be humble enough to know we have to work really hard and then have enough confidence and belief in ourselves, given what we have been doing recently, to understand that we have an opportunity in this game.

“We are at home, which is important for us, and I think we need to go and play and express ourselves. We need to be confident in possession of the ball for as long as we can to deny Dundela opportunities because they are a good side. Stephen Gourley has them going really well.

“They have put together a really good squad and maybe slid under the radar a bit, but they have picked up some really good results and they are in a real vein of form. We are probably the two in-form teams at the minute so that lines it up to be a really good game.”

Canning was on the touchline for the victory over Knockbreda, but the Dundela game marks his first official game in charge of Ballinamallard, and he admits is looking forward to it.

“I can’t wait to be in and around the place on a match day,” he said. “I can’t wait to get around the ground early and savour the atmosphere that comes with it. It will all be either amplified or decimated depending on the result, and that is the most important thing. I will enjoy it even more if we win.”

Ballinamallard went into last weekend’s match against Knockbreda as firm favourites, with the home team yet to pick up a point in the league this season, but they were tested by the concession of an early goal.

Canning, who was particularly impressed by the performance of his midfield duo of Aaron Harking and Alex Holder, was delighted with how his side responded to the setback.

“The most pleasing thing on Saturday was the mentality of the players and how they responded to going a goal down,” he said. “It was a difficult game because there are no plaudits for winning it and there are a lot of swords out if you don’t win it. Knockbreda will pick up a point sometime and we just needed to make sure it wasn’t us.”

“There can be no question that we deserved the three points. We certainly played all the football and created the lion’s share of the chances.

“On a difficult pitch that became more difficult as the game wore on, credit to our players, they continued to play and knock on the door and kept asking questions, and that is why we deserved the three points in the end.

“We deservedly equalised before half time, and the timing of that goal was a big moment in the game because it changed the team talk for us, and for them, and maybe took any wind that they had in their sails out of it.”