Duck Farmers!

The Sky Blues need to take on the role of 'duck farmers' tomorrow at the Showgrounds, when Ballinmallard are the visitors. It's a meeting of the two Uniteds, but there is only room for one in our opinion, Ballymena United. We're not saying that we have an exclusive right to that name, far from it, but we have been the only United in the Irish Premier league since its inception and we're not about to share that with any 'johnny come lately' without a fight. We mean a fight for the points of course, we don't want to encourage that other fighting, we'll save it for Boxing day (ha, ha, get the pun). As usual despite all the advances in modern telecommunications, like computers web pages, facebook and twitter , we haven't the foggiest idea about our team selection.

But experience tells us that United manager Glenn Ferguson, could be termed as the 'Iron man', for he's not known to change for change sake and if everyone's fit, we would expect him to name an unchanged team for the 3rd match in a row, but in saying that, what do we know? The answer to that poser is, damn little. We have tried to second guess Spike many times in his short spell at the Showgrounds and ended up for the most part with egg on our faces, but we'll be surprised if the same team don't get a vote of confidence from the Iron man. That means no place on our team for the gang of three, Liggie, Mario and MM, they are fast developing into the forgotten men in our panel. Fegie is picking the team he can rely on and why not, sure we are knocking on the door of the top six.

But lets not get carried away, the Ducks will present a huge obstacle tomorrow, they have slipped up of late and despite denials to the contrary that huge hammering by Portadown is bound to be fresh in their minds. But they'll not lie down, despite their manager, Whitey Anderson, still serving his touchline ban, they'll be organised and disciplined but we have to get in among them and tear that discipline to shreds. We have the men to do just that, with the inform Cush and Thommo ably backed up by Tony K and Sparky. Captain Jenks got a goal last week and we could see him add to his tally again tomorrow, but he's more of a leader, than a goalscorer and he's leading the line well.

JT will remember the last league game with the Ducks at the Showgrounds, when he was injured and missed the majority of last season but we'll need him tomorrow and if he gets our defenders doing their job the points could be ours. Cookie Munster is back to almost his best and the same applies to Archie and Marky McCullagh, Stuarty is keeping Dwayne out of the keepers jersey. That only leaves the enigma that is Ally to mention. The man is a proven match-winner, but he tends to drift in and out of games, but he is another of our dead-ball experts and especially at corners. He could be the our secret weapon tomorrow as the Cush and Jenks will come in for a bit of attention we think and Ally could exploit the space that inevitably leaves. So come on Sky Blues, lets shred those Ducks!