Irish Cup semi-final: Larne v Ballymena United (Friday, Seaview, 7.45pm)
LARNE boss Tiernan Lynch still carries the bitter memories of last season’s Irish Cup penalty shoot-out exit to Ballymena United as the pair clash in the semi-finals of the competition at Seaview this evening.
As we reach the business end of the season, the Inver Park men are still in with a shout of winning the Irish Cup and Premiership title to add to their Co Antrim Shield they banked earlier in the season.
Leading at the top by five points from defending champions Linfield, Larne turn their attentions to trying to reach their second Irish Cup final in three seasons.
They lost the 2021 decider to the Blues and crashed out at the quarter-final stages of last season’s premier cup competition after leading Ballymena 3-1.
“There is a still a bit of a bone stuck in my throat from last year where we were 3-1 up and we threw the game away,” Lynch said.
The Larne boss praised Ballymena boss David Jeffrey but says Leroy Millar, who moved from the Showgrounds to Inver last summer, knows a thing or two about how his former boss prepares teams for big cup games like tonight.
“David is a bit of master of these one-off games, geeing them up and Leroy has given us a great insight into that to be fair.
“We’re going into this semi-final very much focusing on us. We know what their strengths are, we know where there might be weaknesses too.”
Larne have no injury worries ahead of tonight’s semi-final showdown with Lynch desperate to see the club inch towards a final berth again.
“When you see what this club has been through, the work that goes into it, not just from me, but the fans and Kenny [Bruce] who’s probably spent several million of his kids’ inheritance on the club. It would mean everything to me so that they could enjoy it.
“You always want to make your family proud and all that kind of stuff but even more for those wrapped around this than actually me, but we’re a long way from that against a good Ballymena team.”
On his team selection for the semi-final, Lynch is about “85 per cent there”.
“I don’t ever name the team until the day of the game. I always have a match-day minus-one presentation, so the game-plan goes up, we talk through the game-plan and what we’ve worked on all week. Everybody knows that whether you’re playing or not or on the bench so everybody knows what’s expected in and out of possession, in transitions, set pieces, so hopefully we’ll be ready.”
Dungannon Swifts, who knocked highly fancied Cliftonville out at the quarter-final stages, face Crusaders in Saturday’s other Irish Cup semi-final at Mourneview Park.
