'Outstanding': Ballymena United debutant makes immediate impact after Irish League return

O’Sullivan shone during his time at Glenavon, making 47 Premiership appearances before earning a move to Scottish Championship outfit Ross County in the summer of 2025.

The 22-year-old played 26 times in Scotland’s second-tier last season as the Staggies suffered relegation with County confirming O’Sullivan’s exit in September.

O’Sullivan had been training with League of Ireland club Cork City, but was announced as a new Ballymena player earlier in the week following Shane McEleney’s departure – his contract was terminated by mutual consent.

Former Wexford full-back O’Sullivan was thrown in from the start in Ballymena’s weekend triumph and played a key role.

“I followed Len's career when he was here at Glenavon and followed his progress in Scotland, where he did really well,” Kearney told the club’s media channel. “It was one we had a possible sniff at over the summer, we weren’t quite sure what was happening, and then he left there at the end of it.

"We hadn’t done anything throughout September purely because I don’t want to overload places we don’t want to overload...we have two very good left-backs in Matthew (Clarke) and Micheal (Glynn), we want good cover and competition in each position.

"The curse of the left-footed left defender just seems to be too much for us! Jonny (Addis) is injured, Matthew and Micheal are injured, and I think it brings a bit of imbalance.

"With Shane moving on this week, it frees up that place where Clarkey has played at left centre-half quite a bit and gives us balance if needed, and it frees up a position at left-back for us to do that.

"We’re delighted to get him in. He’s a fit lad and he looks after himself, but credit to him coming in here and cruising through 90 minutes, I thought he was outstanding.”

Ballymena went behind less than a minute into Saturday’s contest – Jacob Blaney struck for the Crues – but responded through goals from Josh Archer and Kodi Lyons-Foster.

Kearney’s men have now moved into the Premiership’s top-half after winning three and drawing two of their last six league matches.

"It was a big response,” added Kearney. “Football can be mad and you try and prepare for everything, starts like that happen, you see it in every league.

"The most important thing is the response and I said at half-time it’s not often you dish out praise, but I felt from the moment the ball hit the net on 30 seconds we got up and running straight away.

"We didn’t feel sorry for ourselves, our overall performance was pretty complete in both halves.

"There’s been games recently where we’ve been really good for parts and ok for parts, but then crazy things are happening that hurt us.

"I just thought today the overall level of our calmness more than anything encouraged me most, particularly when we go ahead and how we manage the game was exceptional.

"We could have been in ahead at half-time, we created some good opportunities and looked a real threat at times.

"You can look throughout the team and we had no passengers, which is the most important thing.

"It takes that at this level, you need 11 guys on it, or 14 or 15 guys, to get a result and thankfully we’ve had that.”