Ballinamallard manager Mark Stafford admits he does not know which version of his team will take to the pitch to play Dundela on Saturday.  

The Mallards have been plagued by inconsistency all season and have been unable to string two match winning performances together.  

They have racked up impressive wins against title challengers Bangor and Limavady, yet they have lost to both of the bottom two clubs in the NIFL Championship.

The past two weeks demonstrated their inconsistency once again, as they scored four to beat Ballyclare Comrades before losing to a Newington side who had not won any of the previous seven games.  

This Saturday Ballinamallard welcome second placed Dundela to Ferney Park, and Stafford admits he does not know how his team will perform.  

“I don’t know what we are going to get against Dundela,” he conceded.  

“Our performances are very up and down, and we can’t get anything consistent going.  

"We have been very good at times this year, and we were good last week, but very poor this week.  We had a good result last week, but two of the midfield three that started last week didn’t start this week.

"Then we play on Saturday and two of the back four don’t finish the game either. It is nearly impossible to get anything going. It is a tough gig at the minute.

"I know Dundela are going really well and are up in second in the league. They are a good team with good players and they work hard, so we will be up against it on Saturday again.” 

Victory over Newington would have opened up a ten-point gap between Ballinamallard and the foot of the table, and Stafford admitted they all knew the importance of a victory.  

“It is disappointing to concede in the 94th minute again, especially in a game that we really needed to win,” he said.  

“It was a six-pointer. I said to the players before the game how important it was, so to come away with a defeat is not good. Even a point wouldn’t have been so bad, but to lose all three is poor.” 

Stafford acknowledged they failed to hit the heights of the previous week, as they failed to score a goal for the first time in six matches.  “In the first half I thought we were very poor,” he said.  

“We didn’t start well at all, but in the second half, we had the better of the chances.

"We had a player that was injured playing in the middle of the defence, so we had to change that and that tightened us up in the second half and we had a couple of really big chances, but we didn’t take them and they hit us on the counter-attack.” 

Despite losing both central defenders to injury on Saturday, Stafford is hopeful some of the other squad members with long-term injuries are getting closer to a return to action, although Saturday may come too soon.  

“Peter Maguire has hurt his hamstring again, and Nathan Sherry had to come off in the first twenty minutes with an abdominal injury and he could be out for a while, but everybody is coming back soon,” he revealed.  

“For this Saturday Arko (Aaron Arkinson) is a doubt and (Alex) Holder is still a doubt, and I’m not sure about (Gary) Armstrong either, so it's hard to know where I am at.  

"We got some minutes out of Callum Moorehead on Saturday which was good to see. It’s good to see him back on the pitch.”