LARNE boss Tiernan Lynch hailed his side’s resilience after they as good as wrapped up back-to-back Premiership titles at Windsor Park.
Tuesday’s 1-1 draw away to Linfield ensured the Invermen would go into the final round of fixtures on Saturday with a three point lead and, crucially, a 17-goal advantage in the Goal Difference stakes.
Unless there is a miraculous turn around Lynch’s men will be presented with the Gibson Cup following Saturday’s encounter at home to Coleraine.
He admits it wasn’t pretty at times in claiming the crucial point at Windsor, but their grit helped to carry them over the line.
“We probably saved our worst performance to last,” he quipped.
“However, the boys deserve a lot of credit as I told them afterwards because if you’re going to go on and win league titles you have to be able to win and get results in different ways across a season.
“I’ve said many times before, people often talk about the football Larne try to play, but the don’t always talk about the resilience and being prepared to roll their sleeves up and we griound it out.
“Credit needs to go to Linfield for how much they put into it and how well they played but this was a great result for us.
“It wasn’t pretty by any stretch. Linfield were much better than us on the night.
“We had to stand up to that and make sure we get through it and we did.”
Lynch also revealed that he and his team were driven by those who doubted if they could retain the title that was 134 years in the making for the club.
He added: “A lot of people wrote us off.
“Before the game we pulled out clips and quotes from people who had us finishing fourth in the league and calling it a season of consolidation.
“The probably drove us on.
“This is a special football club and a special group of boys. Hopefully we can kick on from this now.
“We came to Windsor back in November eight points behind Linfield. If we had lost we would have been 11 behind.
“Instead, in that month we went on to beat Linfield, Cliftonville, Glentoran and Coleraine.
“Our season probably took off from there.
“The players, club, staff and everyone needs to take great credit from that.”
In Tuesday’s encounter Linfield raced into a deserved lead when Leroy Millar could only divert a trademark Kirk Millar corner into his own goal.
However, Larne rallied to level from the spot when Andy Ryan coolly slotted home his 23rd league goal of the season, after Tomas Cosgrove had been fouled by Joel Cooper.
Lynch believes this highlighted the hard work his side have put in all season.
“You can have all the talent and ability in the world,” he added.
“If you don’t have that hunger and relentless to work hard every day then it means nothing.
“This group of players have both. They’re a great group who, Monday to Friday, put in the work and you can’t ask anymore from them.
“The staff put in a huge amount of work too, getting gameplans together and all the rest.
“As a collective we have put the work in to achieve this.”
