A large crowd braved the treacherous weather conditions to pack into the Warden Street venue as the Sky Blues looked to claw themselves off the bottom of the IFA Premiership in front of the whole of the United Kingdom..

However, things couldn't have gone worse when after only eight minutes when Sean Friars' shot cannonned off Joe McDonnell into the United penalty area. This allowed Newry full-back Darren King to capitalise on some painfully slow home defending and smash the ball past Alan Blayney.

United had started brightly, as Kevin Kelbie forced his former team-mate Paul Murphy into a low save just before the opening goal. The Dundalk stopper, pushed the stinging shot out for a corner rather than risk holding the ball in the wet weather.

The first half was a poor affair with both sides forcefully trying to compete with the conditions, as on 36 minutes Gavin Melaugh came close to equalising when his effort went just over from long range.

As badly as Ballymena started the first half - they outdone themselves in the second period, as they didn't heed the warning of two close attempts from Gerry Flynn's side - and found themselves two goals down after 50 mintes.

A long punt forward by Murphy in the Newry goal was flicked on by Stephen Garrett into the path of the onrushing Chris Morgan - who left the defenders for dead as he drilled his effort under Blayney.

Teams:

BALLYMENA UNITED	NEWRY CITY
1: BLAYNEY, Alan	1: MURPHY, Paul
4: HAVERON, Gary (c)	2: KING, Darren
5: WATSON, Albert	3: BLACK, Ross
8: MELAUGH, Gavin	4: FEENEY, Cullen
9: TEGGART, Neil	5: FRIARS, Emmett
10: KELBIE, Kevin	6: CLARKE, Richard
11: KING, Stuart	7: GARRETT, Stephen
12: McDONNELL, Joe	8: CURRAN,
13: BURKE, Thomas	9: MORGAN, Chris
18: MULLAN, Liam	10: FRIARS, Sean
22: COLLIGAN, Lee	11: DAVIDSON,
Substitutes	-
7: PICKING, Mark	12: DONEGAN,
Replaced Joe McDonnell (78 mins)	Replaced Chris Morgan (90 mins)
15: WARD, Michael	14: ANDERSON, Tony
Not Used	Replaced Sean Friars (84 mins)
16: WATSON, Aidan	15: KEEGAN, Kevin
Replaced Thomas Burke (57 mins)	Not Used
19: STEWART, Aaron	16: WALSH, Paul
Not Used	Not Used
24: McNEILL, Paul	17: GOWDY
Replaced Liam Mullan (57 mins)	Not Used
Yellow Cards:	-
Unknown	None
Red Cards:	-
None	None