'We are lucky to be still in the cup' - McClean

The Milburn primary school teacher is hopeful he and his team-mates can overcome the Championship side in tonight's (Wednesday) replay at the Riada Stadium.

"Before the match we said our sole aim was to get our name into the next round, unfortunately we have to go to a replay and I feel we are actually lucky to be still in the cup," he said.

"They (Ballymoney) battled hard and thoroughly deserved the draw, but hopefully that's the kick up the back-side we need and we can get the job done on Wednesday night.

McClean like a number of John Gregg's players continued to say the right things after a disappointing result, but he believes it's time for him and his team-mates to start showing it on the pitch.

"As everyone knows our survival in the league is our main priority," he added.

"There are no easy games in the league, we are sitting second bottom at the minute and have a lot of big matches coming up so I believe we need to start trying to string a few results together so that we can move away from bottom half of the table and that means doing it on the pitch.

"Although the league is our main priority it's always nice as a player to have the distraction of cup football.

"On Saturday it was a game where we could take our mind off the league and try and get a good cup run going, I know the club needs a good cup run for financial reasons, so hopefully we can get the job done on Wednesday and push on into the next round."

The ex-Ballymena United man like so many footballers up and down the country was just happy to get back out on a pitch at the weekend.

"We're absolutely delighted to even get a touch of a football, after all the terrible weather we have had.

"Even in the warm-up on Saturday it was great to get a touch of a football but I think you could see that we were rusty, but we can't hold that as an excuse, because Ballymoney were in the same boat, but hopefully now with the weather picking up, then we'll maybe start getting back into the swing of things."

The 25-year-old knew going into Saturday's match that United would be well organised as he had worked with Ballymoney's boss Joe McCall when he played with the Braidmen.

"I worked with Joe McCall whenever I was at Ballymena and he's an excellent coach, he has his teams well drilled and they were very organised and hard to break down and all credit to them.

"They'll be delighted with the result but they thoroughly deserved it, but we know that we have a lot more to offer.

"You only have to look around our changing room that there is a number of quality players in there, but that just isn't good enough, in a game like Saturday's we have to match their work rate and we didn't at times.

"However we'll not panic just yet because we know we have it within us to get us out of the difficulties we are in, I know it's easy saying, it's getting on with the business and doing it."