BALLINAMALLARD manager Tommy Canning has moved quickly to add two players to his squad as the January transfer window opens, with Dean Corrigan arriving from Dergview and Ultan O’Grady coming in from Sligo Rovers.

22-year-old Corrigan played his youth football at Ballinamallard before departing for Dundee as a 16-year-old.

He came back to the club to play for the Reserves in the 2019/20 season and also had spells playing underage football at Derry City and Cliftonville, before signing for Dergview in the summer of 2022 when Canning was the manager at Darragh Park.

Corrigan quickly established himself as a regular at the centre of the Dergview defence, making 16 appearances in the NIFL Championship this season before signing a deal to come back to his home club.

“He is a good player. He is not just coming in because he is a Ballinamallard lad, he is coming in because he is a good player with Championship experience,” said Canning.

“I signed Dean for Dergview and I know what he is about. Since I met him he now has 50 championship games under his belt, so he is even further down the road.

“Dean can play as a centre back in a back four, he can play in a back three, and he has also done a job for me at Dergview as a right back.

“We will see how his game develops but primarily we see him as a centre back that could possibly offer us a bit of cover at right back.

“Dean will know himself there are areas of his game he needs to improve on, and the fact we have Mark Stafford on the coaching team is a huge bonus for someone like him to learn from someone who has done it all in the Irish League.”

Ultan O’Grady arrives from Sligo Rovers having impressed in several training sessions prior to Christmas. The 20-year-old was a member of the Rovers Under-19 squad last season, and arrives to bolster the midfield.

“Ultan is a central midfield player and at this moment in time we are looking at him as a number eight,” revealed Canning.

“He has lots of energy and is someone who would have been described in the past as putting fires out for you.

“He gets the ball back really well, he stops attacks, he is good at pressing, he is physical and aggressive and covers the ground well.

“All those things are important to us in the middle of the park.

“He fits into the way we want to play with high energy and intensity.”

Canning has been delighted with the two signings he has made so far, and feels both players will bring the energy and commitment he is looking for as he tries to build his squad into future promotion challengers.

“What we are looking at is a slower building process, and the couple of lads we have brought in fit into the profile we are after,” he said.

“They are younger players in and around their earlier twenties who have a real desire to carve out a career for themselves in football, and people who really want to play for Ballinamallard. We are light in terms of numbers of senior players at the moment. We are lucky that we have an academy behind us and we are able to bring in players from that, but we still thought we needed to bring in a few senior players.

“The brief for me is to try and promote as many young players through the academy as we possibly can, so there is no sense in bringing in a lorry load of experienced Championship players that ends up pushing these lads further away from opportunities, but we also have to factor in the reality that they are not ready to play regularly and the group needs a bit of help, so we are careful who we bring in and it’s about balancing that.”

The manager admits he is looking to complete further business during the transfer window, with a striker high on his wish list: “We have been working hard to try to get someone at the top end of the pitch to try to help us out as well,” he said.

“There are players out there that have been around the block, but we want to build towards something and we don’t want to do short term signings unless necessary.

“If someone comes along between now and the end of January then we will look at that,” Canning concluded.