Gary Boyle: Newry City's home form is something that needs to change very quickly ahead of crunch Ballymena United clash

Boyle’s men have only picked up one point from a possible 27 at the Showgrounds this season while their last victory on the pitch in front of home support came with a 4-1 success against Carrick Rangers on November 12, 2022.

They’ve also scored the fewest (five) and conceded the most (26) of any top-flight team this term on their home patch, but come into this bottom of the table encounter buoyed by picking up a point at Crusaders last weekend – their first against a top-six outfit since January.

Newry and Ballymena both sit on 11 points at the halfway stage of the season and can only be separated by goal difference as they aim to take an important step forward in the race for survival this evening.

"Our home form is something that needs to change very quickly,” Boyle told the club’s media channel. “If we could put our finger on what it was it would help. We'll be raring to go under the lights on Friday night with the backing of the supporters.

"As Darren King spoke about, they are a huge part of the club and it's something we've reminded the players of. We'll be doing our best to get a result for them and ourselves on Friday night."

Ballymena also enter on the back of their own positive result having held defending Premiership champions Larne to a stalemate last weekend to end a losing league run of four matches.

Goals have been the main area of concern for the Sky Blues throughout this campaign with Jim Ervin’s men finding the net just 11 times in 19 matches, which is six fewer than nearest rivals Newry.

Ervin has had tonight’s opposition scouted on a number of occasions and has asked his players to raise their levels once again from Saturday’s performance.

"It's going to be difficult,” he told the club’s media channel. “We've had them watched for a number of weeks now.

"They had a great point against Crusaders on Saturday too and not too many would have expected either of us to get anything from our games, but we have so it makes for a great match on Friday night.

"What I'll be asking the players for is the performance against Larne and a wee bit more because ultimately in those games you need to work even harder than we did on Saturday."

Ballymena became just the third team to prevent Larne from scoring this season when they collected a first league clean sheet since late-September.

Ervin, who was a successful defender during his own playing career at Linfield, Carrick Rangers and current club Ballymena, knows the importance of being resolute.

"The clean sheet is the first positive to take from it (the draw with Larne),” he added. “I thought defensively we were outstanding and we had a game plan.

"When the league champions are coming you can't be naive and think that you're going to get anything - you need to work extremely hard and we did that.

"We have to be pleased with a clean sheet against the league champions and it's something we have to build on heading into Friday night."