As in their previous away match at Portadown, the Sky Blues went ahead, courtesy of Gavin Melaugh's 25-yard thunderbolt, only to once again succumb to two goals inside a two minute spell midway through the half.

"The players got what they deserved – nothing – out of the game," said a dejected Wright.

"When you score a goal like the one we did it should give you a lift, but we weren't strong enough to go on from that.

"There was effort – they could never be accused of a lack of that – but we lacked character. It was grown men not doing their jobs.

"I don't think individually or as a team, with maybe one or two exceptions, that we're working hard enough and that is not what I require.

"The players will use some excuse but instead of feeling sorry for themselves they need to stand up and do the jobs we pay them to do.

We still have an opportunity to get fourth but any more performances like that and we'll be going down the table rather than up it. If we don't buck up our ideas we'll be in mid-table.

"We either seem to go on an unbelievable run of wins or an unbelievable run of defeats – this particular run, there is no reason other than that we haven't applied ourselves when it has mattered," the manager added.

Melaugh gave Ballymena a scarcely deserved lead four minutes after the restart when he rocketed a 25-yard left foot screamer into the top corner.

But Swifts levelled on 71 minutes when Mark McAllister turned Dean Pooley entirely too easily before slotting past Paul Murphy.

And the Northern Ireland under-21 international then glanced home a header from an inswinging Orman Okunaiya cross two minutes later for the winning goal.

Wright threw on all three of his subs at once and two of them almost combined to good effect when Michael Ward released Stephen Lowry but although the midfielder's lob cleared advancing keeper Dwayne Nelson, it also sailed wide of the post.

Report from Ballymena Times

Teams:

DUNGANNON SWIFTS	BALLYMENA UNITED
1: NELSON, Dwayne	1: MURPHY, Paul
3: GALLAGHER, JP	2: WRAY, Thomas
4: MONTGOMERY, Johnny	3: McCLEAN, Craig
6: CURRAN, John	4: PATRICK, Lee
7: TOMELTY, Jamie	5: WATSON, Albert (c)
9: McALLISTER, Mark	6: POOLEY, Dean
10: FRIEL, Austin	7: SCATES, Garth
14: HEGARTY, Michael	8: MELAUGH, Gavin
15: FITZPATRICK, Terry	10: KELBIE, Kevin
16: McCARRON, Aidan	11: KING, Stuart
23: MURPHY, Darren	17: WALSH, Davitt
Substitutes	-
11: McGERRIGAN, Shea	9: WARD, Michael
Replaced Darren Murphy (81 mins)	Replaced Davitt Walsh (77 mins)
12: FORKER, Paul	12: COLLIGAN, Lee
Not Used	Not Used
17: CUNNINGHAM, Stephen	14: KELLY, Simon
Not Used	Not Used
18: OKUNAIYA, Ormon	16: LOWRY, Stephen
Replaced Terry Fitzpatrick (55 mins)	Replaced Lee Patrick (77 mins)
22: FERRY, Sean	17: WATSON, Aidan
Not Used	Replaced Garth Scates (77 mins)
Yellow Cards:	-
POOLEY, Dean (53 mins)	None
Red Cards:	-
None	None