Oran Kearney's Coleraine Christmas list focus on players not presents before Ballymena trip

With injury issues and illness disrupting selection options of late, Kearney has had to check at least twice this week on a string of players before finalising plans to tackle Ballymena towards derby bragging rights and Sports Direct Premiership points.

And Kearney’s Bannsiders visit a Ballymena side sitting joint bottom of the senior standings in search of a welcome win following back-to-back defeats for Coleraine to Linfield and Dungannon Swifts.

“It's a conveyor belt at the moment where we're literally rolling boys out,” said Kearney following last Friday’s loss to Linfield. “We'd two or three that haven't left their bed this week in relation to flus and bugs that are going round who, ideally, shouldn't have been on the pitch as well.

"But credit to them they've gone and given us everything tonight, like we would expect. It just is, sadly, where we are at this point in time where we are carrying bodies. I'm sure other clubs have injuries here and there as well and sickness and all that goes with it but we just have to clear those up as quick as possible.”

With a view to Ballymena, Kearney was clear.

“Don't know if anyone will be back for Boxing Day...in simple terms we just don't have the squad to carry people, we never had,” he said. “We've always been that make-up where less is more, where we've always relied on a cohort of 'go-tos'.

"Not just tonight but this season if I think of four or five really important ones - you could count on two hands the amount of appearances they've had between them...Josh Carson probably single figures, Matthew Shevlin the same, Stephen O'Donnell has played one 90 minutes and a half beyond that.

"Those guys have probably been stalwarts of where we've been in the past couple of seasons. I think on your day you can miss one or two of those but we've just constantly missed four or five of those types of guys and, sadly, it shows.

“One of those where we just need to get those guys back and firing on all cylinders. Sadly, that's probably not going to happen straight away...people who are getting opportunities, they have to step up and show.”​​