David Jeffrey never lost belief in his cup heroes

The Sky Blues had struggled to impose themselves on derby rivals Coleraine for most of the match.

Eoin Bradley fired the Bannsiders in front in first half stoppage time, and as the game moved in to seven minutes of additional time at the end of the game there looked to be only one winner.

But Ballymena proved otherwise as Kenny Kane bundled the ball home for the equaliser in the 94th minute.

They went on to win the game on penalties proving Jeffrey’s faith in his players was far from misplaced.

“Before we walked out onto the pitch I knew that we were going to do it,” he said.

“See if you don’t have belief? You don’t have anything. Players have got to go and do it, but you’ve got to have that belief and that drive. If you don’t have those you may give it up.

“That’s why I was so overjoyed that we scored when we did. We got through extra time, then on to penalties – and David Douglas said to me ‘We’ve got this’. I said ‘Well, hopefully we have’.

“It’s a cruel way out on opposition but I don’t think anybody could deny us.

“Coleraine have had a great season and congratulations to them, a fantastic season, they’re already in Europe. But we’ve a chance.

“The bottom line is, and this is not some amateur effort at psychological warfare, the reality is that whoever progresses they’re obviously going to be the favourites.

“But we’re in the final, the Irish Cup Final, and that’s a team that had a poor season.

“I said to the players beforehand that we started the season fantastically well, got through in Europe, that was great. Then because of injuries, suspensions, and unavailability of players we had a horrible season.

“I’ll give you a couple of examples of where it was a tough, tough season. We went to Coleraine and had young Jordan Williamson sent off. Next game we didn’t have a goalkeeper, big Decky Carville went in and was absolutely superb for us that day – then the freakiest of freak goals.

“So we came to the Irish Cup and that was the one thing we went for. We had it tough against Crumlin Star, absolutely no doubt about it; it was big Decky again who scored the opening header.

“Then we had to go to Warrenpoint and that was another real tough one, big Kyle Owens helped us along the way. Then we go to Ballinamallard, another banana skin, and young Josh Kelly and Anthony Kane come up with two great goals.

“I said to the players, ‘It was a horrible season, but through all of those difficult situations we kept going’.

“I used a Bible reading from Joshua, where I told the players to ‘Be strong and have good courage’. I told them to be courageous, not to be afraid, and to keep going - and they did so, and I’m absolutely delighted.”

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