Ballinamallard manager Mark Stafford hopes the quality his side showed in the confidence-boosting 4-1 victory at Ballyclare Comrades will carry through to this Saturday’s vital clash against bottom club Newington.   

The Mallards travel to Inver Park having beaten Newington in each of their last three encounters, and the manager is in no doubt about the importance of a victory, which would increase the gap to the bottom of the Championship table to double figures.  

“It is very important to back up Saturday’s win by going there and trying to get a result,” he said.  

“If we win we would be ten points clear of Newington, and that would be very important for us. If we don’t win the game it is down to four points, so it is a six-pointer again.  

"We will obviously try to carry the confidence we got from Saturday’s result into that game and try to get another good positive result.  

"Newington might be bottom of the table, but I have watched a bit of them this season and they go all-out attack and they are a difficult team to play against.”

Ballinamallard displayed an attacking intent of their own against Ballyclare last Saturday, following up their 4-0 victory over Comrades on the opening day of the season with four more goals at Dixon Park.

Danny Barker’s hat-trick means only the top three sides in the Championship standings have scored more than the Mallards this season, and Stafford was full of praise for his strike force on Saturday.

“Danny now has nine goals in the Championship for a team that is in the bottom three, so he is doing very well for us,” he said.  

“Darragh Stewart has six goals, so they have both been brilliant, but I thought Josh McIlwaine was very good on Saturday. He didn’t get on the score sheet, but he was very good in the air all day.

"He was captain of the team on Saturday on his 250th appearance for the club, and he didn’t let their centre halves win anything at all.

"They were on the back foot all the time when we went long and that helped keep us on the front foot the whole time.” 

Stafford felt the margin of victory on Saturday was a fair reflection of his team’s dominance.  

“I was delighted with our whole team performance,” he said.  

“I thought we were very good in the first half.  I thought we were very much in the ascendancy and we put them under pressure from set pieces. We made one of them count thankfully.  

"We probably deserved to go in one nil up, but we went to sleep for a split second and didn’t track a runner from midfield and they scored a good goal.  

"You are going in at halftime for the fourth week in a row having been one nil up and not managed to stay ahead, but we were very positive with the players and wanted them to keep doing what we were doing and keep the confidence high.  

"We conceded a few minutes into the second half against Armagh and Limavady, but we were very positive and went out and played on the front foot this time and tried to win the game.

"We got two goals early, and Ballyclare then they lost their discipline a bit and got two sent off, and it was job done.”