Coach looks to improve on disappointing last season

That is the view of head coach John Andrews who aims to restore the Braidmen's reputation within the club game in Ireland after they slipped into the third tier of Irish rugby on the last day of last season.

The despair of the manner in which it happened - as well as Ballymena's own last-day defeat at Ballynahinch, a number of other clubs in the lower reaches also won to close the relegation trapdoor on Ballymena - was in stark contrast to the jubilation Andrews experienced just a couple of months earlier when, in his daytime job, he led Ballymena Academy to their first Schools' Cup success in 31 years.

"From the position we were in at Christmas, we certainly didn't expect to be in a relegation dogfight and even with three or four games to go we still looked to be OK.

But we had a couple of poor performances and we missed a great chance in Galway to make ourselves safe and on the last day of the season, the results went against us.

"A lot of the games finished very tight and there were occasions where we narrowly missed out on bonus points.

"There was despondency but a lot of determination from the players to get back out onto the pitch.

"We felt we had let ourselves down and let the club down.

"We got some good fitness training done in May and June and we have worked hard in pre-season and the players are very much looking forward to the new season," added John.