United out to ensure old ally doesn’t come back to haunt them

Corner are managed by Joe McCall’s former right-hand man Sammy McVicker and the Ballymoney boss is aiming to spring a few surprises to keep his friend guessing ahead of the Championship 2 clash.

“I’d them watched the first game of the season against Portstewart and I was told they worked really, really hard, very honest, put a good shift in, have a couple of half decent players and was told they deserved to beat Portstewart,” McCall told Times Sport.

“And then they go on Saturday and get beat by Barn in the Steel and Sons so they are probably a team that’s quite young.

“Knowing Sammy they will be quite young, they will be energetic, they will work hard but maybe they just won’t have the consistency.

“Now I would like to think we gave our boys a bit of a pasting last week training wise, not because we lost to Ballyclare, just that we didn’t look sharp so we did a couple of speed sessions over the course of the week which was quite demanding so the majority of them had Saturday off.

“I would like to think their energy levels will be higher than Chimney Corner’s to be honest with them playing Saturday so I would expect us to be sharper, quicker and stronger than them but whether that happens I don’t know.

“It’s tricky for me in the sense Sammy knows everything about the club, the players and set plays and stuff so we will maybe have to do a bit of tweaking for that.

“I know he will be up for it. They’ve had a good start to the league so it will be a difficult game.”

McCall is confident ahead of tonight’s match and Saturday’s game against Wakehurst that Ballymoney can put their opening day defeat to Ballyclare behind them.

“I’d three of the first 11 out against Ballyclare,” he said.

“Gareth Hill and Mark Gillan are still not available and the only one who will be coming back in is Kyle Buckley who was suspended for the first game.

“Apart from that we look fine. We were disappointed to lose our first game of the season but when you look at it in the cold light of day it was a game that we should have won.

“Every game I expect us to win and we will go out on Tuesday night looking for all three points.

“I will have Saturday’s opponents Wakehurst watched against Ballyclare and that will give me a bit of an insight into where they are at.”