BALLYMENA United are away for the second week in a row, this time a trip to New Grosvenor Park to take on Lisburn Distillery in the Carnegie Premier League.

Distillery have already reached the semi-finals of the Irish Cup - and will ironically meet the winners of next week's Linfield/Ballymena tie. But United manager Tommy Wright has banned all talk of a possible rehearsal of the semi-final. Instead, United will be vying for the league points, as they try to finish in the top six, and a win on Saturday would take them to within three points of their opponents, in 7th place.

However, Ballymena haven't beaten the 'Whites' in our last four meetings, and Paul Kirk's side have already defeated United this season at the Showgrounds, with Francis Murphy scoring the winner in a 1-0 victory for the visitors. Distillery also defeated Ballymena in last season's reverse fixture, 2-1, almost a year to the day, and disposed of the Braidmen in the Irish Cup after a replay. Ballymena's last win came at home last season when Andrew Rosbotham scored the only goal in a 1-0 win.

Tommy Wright faces a reshuffle of his team as Craig McClean and Aidan Watson have both returned from their one game suspensions. However, Aaron Callaghan will be in Romania with the Northern Ireland Under-21 squad, while both Gavin Melaugh and Lee Patrick are still rated doubtful after both missing the last two games with ankle injuries; Both however, returned to training this week.

Travel Arrangements

The Seven Towers Supporters' Club will be running a bus to the game, which will be leaving from the Moat Bar, in Harryville - departing at 1.45pm with non-members welcome. It is currently unknown if the Paradise Supporters' Club will be running a bus to Ballyskeagh.

Key Player

Former Glentoran striker, Darren Armour, has been a thorn in the side of Ballymena United for many years. The bulldog front man has hit form again for the Whites after being transfer-listed last year - and helped them to the County Antrim Shield final already this season. Having spent most of his career at Distillery he joined Glentoran in 2001, before returning back to Ballyskeagh in 2001.

Ex-Players

In the United ranks, the only player to have played for Lisburn Distillery is current vice-captain, Gary Haveron who spent just over a season with the Whites after returning home from England. He enjoyed a very successful spell at Distillery and was even awarded the captaincy in 2003, he however left to join Coleraine the following year. Ballymena-based defender, Paul Muir is the only Distillery player to have appeared in sky blue, as he began his career with United before moving to Crusaders in 1999, then onto Distillery.

Previous Meetings

DATE	COMPETITION	HOME TEAM	SCORE	AWAY TEAM
25-11-06	Premier League	Ballymena United	0-1	Lisburn Distillery
25-03-06	Premier League	Lisburn Distillery	2-1	Ballymena United
15-02-06	Irish Cup	Ballymena United	1-2	Lisburn Distillery
11-02-06	Irish Cup	Lisburn Distillery	0-0	Ballymena United
26-11-05	Premier League	Ballymena United	1-0	Lisburn Distillery

Form Guide

	BALLYMENA UNITED	DISTILLERY
LEAGUE POSITION	9th - 33 points	7th - 39 points
TOP SCORER	Kevin Kelbie (10)	Darren Armour (16)
FORM (LAST SIX MATCHES)	WLWDDW	WDWWWL
LAST RESULT	W 3-0 v. Armagh City (a)	L 0-3 v. Linfield (a)