Dungannon Swifts’ foundations now built on increased tactical flexibility for Kris Lindsay

A first point of the campaign for the Swifts arrived in last weekend’s scoreless draw with Glenavon on an afternoon which featured ‘tweaks’ by Lindsay to the Dungannon blueprint he considers central to the welcome reward.

“I’ve had a few transfer windows now with the squad in terms of signings and also getting a look at players coming up the ranks,” said Lindsay, who stepped into his first senior management position with the Swifts in September 2018. “We had a good pre-season together to work on certain things and it’s about trying to maximise any time together on the training ground.

“We made a few tweaks for the Glenavon game and that ability to adjust systems, even within games, is massive moving forward.

“We are in a position now to do that, with increased options and fluidity certainly something all clubs work towards.

“It all comes down to performances on the pitch and it was great to finish the Glenavon game with a first point off a good away display.

“We will be looking another strong away performance now against Carrick.

“It’s a big one given how we all look to target points from games against clubs around you in the table.”

Carrick remain adrift at the bottom following opening fixtures against Linfield, Larne and Cliftonville - three clubs expected to challenge for honours.

In contrast, this weekend’s home test offers Niall Currie and his squad a challenge against a club sitting just a single point away in the Premiership standings.

“Obviously we all know its been an extremely difficult run of fixtures that we have had from the start of the season, but I have seen plenty of positives for us in all the games,” said Currie. “So no need for any negativity.

“For 60 minutes on Saturday we dealt with Cliftonville brilliantly but, unfortunately, when they got their first goal it changed everything.

“We now have a run of games and an opportunity to get our season started.

“It will be a level playing field on Saturday against Dungannon and I’m quite sure Kris will be looking at this fixture in the same way as us - in regards to getting three points.

“We were evenly-matched in all our games last season and I expect Saturday to be the same.

“It will be down to who takes their chances and we will definitely be going on the frontfoot.”