Jamie McGonigle on target for memorable season with Crusaders

The former Coleraine front man has hit the net 19 times since making the switch to the Shore Road in the summer.

That leaves him one goal away from his best ever tally in the Irish League, with three months still to play.

The competition for places up top with the likes of Jordan Owens, Paul McElroy and Paul Heatley all battling it out is clearly helping fire the Northern Ireland U21 striker to more glory.

“As a striker you want to be the leading goal scorer at the club,” said McGonigle.

“Hopefully I can keep knocking them in.

“When you’re playing off ‘Chicken’ you sort of just run and the ball seems to fall at your feet.

“He’s a gift to play with and I’m definitely enjoying it.

“There’s serious competition but that brings the best out in players.

“You would nearly rather have that.

“I know that as long as I go out put in everything I have on a Saturday I’m going to be in the next week.”

As well as scoring freely the Crues have proved they they are a tough nut to crack at the other end as they made it six games without conceding last Saturday.

“It was a hard-fought win,” said McGonigle.

“We knew with the way Ballymena are playing that they are very defensive.

“It was just a matter of keeping going, and once we went 1-0 up we knew ourselves that was the game over.

“They had a good chance in the first half if he hits the target it’s a goal.

“You could start and think it’s one of those games where you don’t take your chances, but the way we’ve been playing recently scoring and not conceding fills us full of confidence.

“In the run-in you want to be winning as many games as you can.

“I think that’s six now we’ve won in a row without conceding a goal.

“We know that if we keep a clean sheet we’re capable of nicking at least one at the other end.

“We just have to try and keep that going.”

Carrick Rangers will be hoping to bounce back from last week’s last-gasp defeat at home to Warrenpoint Town.

“We felt we had done enough to get a point on the balance of play,” said coach John McAllister.

"At the end of the day, we’ve made a couple of mistakes at a crucial time in the game and Warrenpoint have their win.

We never believe that anything is done until it’s really over.

“But hopefully we can get the points from now until the end of the season to keep us clear of that drop zone,” he added.