Tommy Wright was forced to reshuffle his pack as Johnny Flynn was omitted from the side, as he moves closer to a full-time move to Blackburn Rovers. Darren Fitzgerald also made a surprise return to the side on the right flank.

The home side came out of the blocks fast and had the guts of the early opportunities; Stuart King's darting run into the box was coupled with a poor finish as he dragged his shot across the face of goal.

United continued the attack and Kevin Kelbie struck wide, while Garth Scates failed to add the finishing touch from close range after some neat build-up play from Tommy Wright's side.

Crusaders settled the game down though, and somewhat against the run of play – they opened the scoring on 20 minutes. Centre-back Colin Coates rose unmarked to head home a corner, and put the visitors into the lead.

This seemingly rattled the normally resolute Sky Blues, as Stephen Baxter's side began to take control and Paul Murphy's excellent reflex save prevented an almost certain second goal.

After the break, the game continued in similar fashion with entertaining end-to-end football – but on 52 minutes the visitors stunned the Braidmen by scoring again as Steven Coulter seen his shot deflect off a United midfielder, Garth Scates, and into the back of the net.

The Sky Blues continued to fight what seemed a losing battle, as Wright hauled off Darren Fitzgerald just after the hour mark; giving a debut to new signing Michael Ward (pictured). Braid leader, Wright, took off the defensive Haveron and McClean and threw on Davitt Walsh and Mark Picking in the hope of salvaging something from the tie.

On 70 minutes, the match took another twist as Crusaders' full-back Barry Spence received a straight red card from referee Alan Black after his dangerous two-footed attempt at a tackle on Mark Picking.

In the 89th minute, the home side were thrown a major lifeline. Debutant Michael Ward’s attempted chip rattled the post, but Gavin Melaugh was on hand to tap in past Aaron Kerr from close range.

With four minutes of added time indicated by the fourth official, Crusaders attempted to slow the game down with a late substitution and a number of players needing treatment.

However, in the FIFTH minute of stoppage time, Garth Scates’ mishit free-kick fell to Davitt Walsh who found space to rifle an unstoppable shot off the under-side of the crossbar and steal a point for United and send Warden Street into raptures with Crusaders stunned.

The draw keeps up Ballymena United’s unbeaten run which currently stands at 14 games, only four off the club record of 18 set by Arthur Stewart’s side in the 1970’s.

Goalscorer Gavin Melaugh was in high praise of his team-mates’;

"I would say it was the best I've seen played by any team since I came back from England.

"We just couldn't score and when they got the goals we kept on going until the death, got one goal and then got the other one.

"That's why we're 14 games unbeaten at the moment. There's that mentality and it showed at the end what it meant to us.

"It's very important that we keep it going because we've got a couple of big teams coming up.”

Teams:

BALLYMENA UNITED	CRUSADERS
1: MURPHY, Paul	1: KERR, Aaron
2: WRAY, Thomas	2: SPENCE, Barry
3: McCLEAN, Craig	3: McBRIDE, Stephen
4: HAVERON, Gary	4: DOHERTY, Eamon
5: WATSON, Albert (c)	5: SMYTH, Gary (c)
6: KELLY, Simon	6: COATES, Colin
7: MELAUGH, Gavin	7: COULTER, Steven
8: SCATES, Garth	8: MORROW, Chris
9: FITZGERALD, Darren	9: BROWN, Seamus
10: KELBIE, Kevin	10: RAINEY, David
11: KING, Stuart	11: HYNDES, Stephen
Substitutes	-
12: PICKING, Mark	12: EMERSON, Alain
Replaced Gary Haveron (58 mins)	Not Used
14: WARD, Michael	14: LORRIMER, Wayne
Replaced Darren Fitzgerald (64 mins)	Not Used
15: PATRICK, Lee	15: McALLISTER, Eamonn
Not Used	Not Used
16: LOWRY, Stephen	16: MAGOWAN, David
Not Used	Replaced Stephen Hyndes (90 mins)
17: WALSH, Davitt	17: CRAWFORD, Anto
Replaced Craig McClean (72 mins)	Replaced Seamus Brown (77 mins)
Yellow Cards:	-
Unknown	Unknown
Red Cards:	-
None	SPENCE, Barry (70 mins)