'We'll need to roll our sleeves up' - Gregg

It’s expected work at the ground will start tonight (Wednesday) in an attempt to get the match on this weekend and Gregg will be warning his players that they need to be on their guard.

“It has been tough and I have to admit I don’t think in my life-time have I ever seen the weather as bad,” he said.

“You are talking about three or four weeks without football and what people don’t understand is that lads are travelling to training and going into a sports hall, which is no bigger than a five-a-side pitch, and trying to work hard and I have to give my lads credit because they were in Donegal on a beach on Saturday and they met up on Sunday and put in another good session.

“I would say they have been in doing some sort of training at least three or four times a week, since the enforced break. I would also like to thank all the schools and gyms who have let us use their facilities to continue our preparation.

“Having said all that we need to make sure that we are ready to roll our sleeves up and make sure we don’t take anything for granted because if we do then Ballymoney will cause us a lot of problems.

“We played them in pre-season and they were a well organised team and they’ll be coming to ’Stute looking to cause a shock, they’ll know as well that we’ll be rusty, but they’ll be rusty too because we haven’t played for a while, but there will be no excuses.

“In saying all that they’ll still be coming to Drumahoe with the wind in their sails and if we don’t prepare for a tough physical game it will come back to haunt us.”

Last season the Waterside men reached the semi-final stage, but Gregg who would love another good cup run, concedes that defeat to eventual winners Crusaders still haunts him.

“I think a cup run would help us this season and as much as we got to the semi-final last year, I would remind myself and the players that the one thing which disappointed me against Crusaders was that we froze on the big occasion.

“As much as I enjoyed the cup run, myself and the players only remember the semi-final tie and we didn't give a good account of ourselves that day and because of that it would be great to have another cup run this season.”