Andy Waterworth is the man for the big occasion

The striker has proved on numerous occasions to be the go to man on the big occasions.

The 32-year-old bagged successive hat-tricks for the Blues last two trophy successes in the 2016/17 season to secure the Danske Bank Premiership and Irish Cup.

And he was up to his old tricks again on Saturday scoring what turned out to be the winning goal to secure yet more silverware for David Healy’s men - the BetMcLean League Cup.

Speaking after the game though Waterworth revealed he had a bit of a sweat on as to whether or not he would get the nod to start the game.

“I was sweating for my place all week because the other boys have been doing really well, which is good for us, because if we want to challenge for things we need a big squad,” he said.

“I’ve probably been below par the last few weeks, so I was delighted when David gave me the shirt tonight.

“He phoned me on Friday when I was driving to work and he made my morning, it allowed me to concentrate on the game and hopefully I repaid him.

“As much as Ballymena were good, I think we realised with about 15 minutes to go that we wanted to keep what we had and be selfless.

“For me that’s the sign of a good team.”

Boss David Healy said Waterworth was always in his plans to start the game because of his big game experience.

“I wanted to name the team on Thursday night, but we had a situation which meant we couldn’t,” explained Healy.

“I spoke to Andy on Friday morning to let him know he would be starting the game.

“Any time we play in a big game when we need a big performance Andy has supplied it.

“Yes Cervenka has done okay since he’s been here, so to has Michael, but you think who’s going to give you the big moment in the big game, the clutch moment, and Andy did again with another wonderful finish today.”

The goal helped secure another trophy success for the Blues, but remarkably their first League Cup triumph in over a decade.

Theyy will be hoping there’s more to come this season with skipper Jamie Mulgrew revealing he never tires in lifting trophies.

“You never get fed up winning things,” said the captain after the game

“Especially here where there’s a lot of pressure on us to do that year in, year out.

“There’s probably even more pressure this season after the disaster of last year.

“We have massive belief in ourselves after the last two results.

“You saw today we were putting bodies on the line and how much we worked for each other.

“There’s not many teams who’ll keep a clean sheet against Ballymena and we have done that.

“We possibly rode our luck a few times, but we came out the other end and won the game.

“We’ll enjoy tonight but we’ll put it to bed and move on to the next one.”