Show Time1

Yes tomorrow is the biggest game for United this season and it will go a long way to fashioning the outcome of this first season in the new Premier league. On form we are on a hiding to nothing, but as we all know form goes out the window in 'derby' games. We have come here many times on the crest of a wave and left with nothing and we have come here many times playing poorly and left in high spirits. For some of our players this will be their first taste of the atmosphere of a Ballymena/Coleraine derby, but hopefully it will be a pleasant and not a 'sickening' experience for them. A win tomorrow or even a hard fought draw and it could kick-start the rest of our season, a defeat, is unthinkable. United must do without the services of local keeper Sean O'Neill who has flu symptoms and this means a recall for number one choice Alan Blaney. Blaney has been less than impressive since signing for the Sky Blues, but tomorrow he gets a chance to put the record straight. Manager Roy Walker has hinted at quite a few changes, but we at 'Sport would caution the United supremo to go easy on the players. Last Saturday they never got a break, okay they contributed to their own downfall with two bad lapses in defence, but they also had no luck at the other end, especially when a Kelbie shot luckily hit keeper Plummer on the knee and bounced to safety, a goal then and the points would have been in the bag. That said we can ill afford any of the 'kamikaze' defending of the first half of that game when we failed to put in a meaningful tackle and allowed the Bangor forwards to 'run rings round us'. Our headline says 'show time', but perhaps it should really say, 'time to show', as that old saying goes, 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going' and now's the time for our team to get going. So come on United, let's shag those stinking gas-men!