Ballymena want to continue making 'great strides' - Ervin

Ballymena United boss Jim Ervin said that his side must give Carrick Rangers "the respect they deserve" after their upturn in form under Stephen Baxter.

Carrick have lost just two of Baxter's seven games in charge thus far and Ervin believes they are a different side to the team beaten 4-1 by the Sky Blues in September.

"We will look at the positives from that game but the Carrick team since Stephen has come in will be a different challenge completely," he said.

"They have had some really good results and positive performances, so we need to give them the respect they deserve and we need to make sure we're on it."

Ballymena have had what Ervin described as an "indifferent" start to the season. They lost their opening four games before winning eight in a row to surge up the table.

They then suffered four successive defeats but beat Cliftonville 1-0 at Solitude in their last league encounter a fortnight ago, with last weekend's game against Larne called off because of a waterlogged pitch.

And Ervin is pleased with the progress made by his side and is determined that they continue their positive momentum generated by the win against the Reds.

"We did everything we could to get the game on last week but with the weather unfortunately we weren't able to do that," Ervin added.

"It was disappointing because when you win games of football you just want the next one to come along but we've had a good week of training.

"We're one point of our total points tally of last year, so we've made great strides, but we're not getting carried away."