THEIR Irish Cup campaign may have come to an end with defeat to Bangor last weekend, but Newington’s full focus is on their league campaign and they face a key fixture when they travel to face Ballinamallard United on Saturday afternoon (3pm).

The Swans are currently bottom of the pile on scoring difference from Newry City, but are five adrift of the safety position where this weekend’s opposition occupies and narrowing that gap is of the utmost importance.

It has been a tough season for the North Belfast club who have found results hard to come by, but there has been an upturn in recent games as prior to the extra-time loss to Bangor, they rounded off 2024 with a 2-0 win over Institute which followed a pair of draws.

Prior to that, they had lost five out of six with the sole win coming against the Mallards when Patrick Downey struck deep in added time.

A repeat of that would be most welcome on Saturday but Hamilton is not downplaying the size of the task as hand as they make the trip to Fermanagh.

“That is a very tough venue to go to, but we will go down as a team and hopefully get up the road with three points this week,” Hamilton said, following their Cup exit in Bangor.

“Our bread and butter is the league and the Irish Cup is just something nice to get a run in.

“It’s alright coming down to places like this, Bangor’s house and we could have won today, so it gives us a lot to work on. There are a lot of positives and we had a few boys missing with colds and flu, so we are right and thin.

“Credit to a couple of the boys who came in from our development team there and did really well. They didn’t look out of place, which is pleasing for us, but we are just trying to get them promoted to the first team. When chances come like they did today for them, they are there and they beef up our bench a bit.”

There was no shortage of endeavour from Newington in their Cup defeat as they went at the Championship leaders from the off and this is the template going forward as they seek to move away from the danger zone in the coming weeks and months.

They have brought in some new faces to aid their cause with Fiontan O’Boyle and Daire Rooney both featuring at Clandeboye Park, while Ronan Kalla has also arrived at the club. Heading in the opposite direction are Joe Diver, Rian Brown, Gerard Storey, Conall Curran and Jack Reilly.

There may be some more ins and outs before the transfer window closes, but the focus will remain the same as the North Belfast side look to produce a strong second part of the season.

“We’ve a couple of players leaving and a couple coming in - that’s just what happens at transfer time,” Hamilton accepts.

“We’ll just dust ourselves down because the last couple of league matches we drew two and won one. OK, we’re out of the Cup but we will see what we can do for the rest of the season.

“We’ll see if there is anybody else who wants to come in and fancies the fight with us.”