Larne are just 90 minutes away from retaining the Sports Direct Irish Premiership league title, and superstar defender Tomas Cosgrove believes that winning the Gibson Cup for a second year in a row will be an “even better achievement” than last year’s historic first.
With a three-point lead in the table and a huge 17-goal difference advantage over closest rivals Linfield, it would take a cricket-score Larne defeat at home against Coleraine on Saturday, coupled with a similarly-scaled Blues victory over Cliftonville to ensure the trophy would not remain on the east Antrim coast.
A set of results even lottery players would not be backing.
For Cosgrove, it has been an exceptional season as he has overcome adversity off the pitch – losing the captain’s armband due to an off-field misdemeanour - to remain the fulcrum at the centre of all that is good on the pitch for his side.
“It certainly has been an amazing achievement to come good and defend the title.” He said.
“It certainly wasn’t plain sailing, particularly in the early stages of the season. Drawing 4-4 at home to Dungannon in the opening game was very disappointing, it certainly deflated the crowd. But maybe it was what we needed to remind us of the scale of the job ahead.
“However, we got ourselves back on the horse and we always backed ourselves to go on a run.
“Winning is like a habit that you get into and thankfully we rarely lost that habit from winter onwards.”
On losing the captaincy to fellow-defender Cian Bolger, Cosgrove is philosophical on the matter and believes any friction that existed is in the past, as he turned in some fantastic performances both in defence and attack for the Inver Reds.
“Look, Tiernan made his decision at the time. I held my hands up that I messed up and I accept that,” the ex-Cliftonville man said.
“I’ll not lie, it hurt and it still hurts and maybe if I was a few years younger I would have sulked and let it affect my game, but I took it on the chin and used it as an incentive to prove people wrong.
“I said to Cian at the time that the issue wasn’t between us so there would be no hard feelings. I think that nipped any uncomfortableness in the bud.
“Something similar happened when I got the captaincy from Jeff Hughes and it can be awkward, but I took on board how good Jeff was and learned from that.
“I have to say the first game not being captain I set up a goal in the Linfield game and that was a great release, I think Tiernan knew from my reaction that I wasn’t best pleased but also that I wanted to play football and give my all as I always do.”
For the second year in a row, Cosgrove will miss the final game of the season due to suspension and whilst the title is likely to be assured he is still disappointed in himself at picking up a yellow card in Monday night’s draw with Linfield.
“Ah look, I’m kicking myself alright.
“I knew once I got booked the other night that was me being a spectator again on the last day of the season, and it was a silly yellow too so i’ll be in the tracksuit again!”
Looking towards today’s game, the west Belfast man believes his side will not be complacent against a Coleraine side on the up.
“Coleraine have been great lately,” said Cosgrove.
“I think people were a bit quick to doubt Oran (Kearney) but he has come back well and people shouldn’t forget the job he has done there.
“We have not found it easy against them lately and I’m sure it will be a tough game on Saturday.
“I don’t envisage Tiernan making a raft of changes bar the suspended players, some younger players may get a chance from the bench and the senior players owe it to them to give it their all on Saturday.
“Also we want to give the fans the right send off and getting beat would definitely dampen the spirits I think.”
So, is there anything left that motivates Cosgrove to continue?
“Of course, I want to get into those European group stages and it will help us by playing our home games at Inver Park
“Also I’ve never won an Irish Cup so that’s important, and now ill have four league titles I want to win more to be one of the greats in the local game when I look back.”