Bally tough test

Gerard Lyttle says it’s important that Cliftonville don’t allow their midweek defeat to Dungannon Swifts to derail the momentum they’ve built as they prepare for tomorrow’s Sports Direct Premiership encounter with Ballymena United.

Having overcome Glentoran on League and BetMcLean Cup Final duty either side of an Irish Cup quarter-final victory over Crusaders, the Reds paid the price for failing to take their chances against the Swifts on Wednresday and are quickly back in action against a United side that has won all three meetings between the sides so far this season.

Encouraged by how well Cliftonville performed in the opening 45 minutes against Dungannon, assistant manager Lyttle hopes consistency of selection can help the team’s efforts at The Showgrounds tomorrow.

“Ballymena’s a tough game, we haven’t had any success against them this year,” he says.

“That’s something that will hopefully motivate us all as a group and we’ll go there trying to win it. We’ve not done well against Ballymena this season, so we know how tough a game we’ll be in for.”

In terms of trying to build on what has largely been a positive recent run, he adds: “It’s down to momentum and we’ve seen over so many games we’ve had there, we didn’t really have the consistency of a starting XI.

“We were mixing and matching, dropping players in, dropping players out, trying to rest them, trying to keep them for the next game and that’s not ideal. That’s why on Wednesday, we tried to keep as close to the starting XI that we’ve had in the last three or four games where we’ve had good results.

“Our attitude just has to be ‘next match, next match’ and it’ll always be that. Ballymena’s the next one now and we’ll be going there trying to get the three points.”

Ballymena United v Cliftonville
Saturday, March 15
Adults: £15
Concessions: £10
Under-12s: £3
Tickets: General Sale