Coleraine manager Ruaidhri Higgins feels their Premiership rivals are “trying to put pressure on us” by talking about his star-studded squad – and insists the Bannsiders are developing talent alongside signing high-profile names.

Higgins’ side have started the 2026/27 campaign as title favourites with bookmakers after another impressive summer of recruitment – both Jay Henderson and Ben Doherty scored in Saturday’s 3-1 win at Dungannon Swifts while Conor McMenamin was an unused substitute.

Larne boss Gary Haveron stated his opinion that Higgins had a ‘Galactico’ team at his disposal with Joel Cooper, Matthew Shevlin, Will Patching and others already on Coleraine’s books.

Higgins has dismissed outside views on his playing panel and highlighted how he’s also helping stars to improve at The Showgrounds.

placeholder image — Coleraine's Jay Henderson celebrates scoring on his Premiership debut. (Photo by David Maginnis/Pacemaker Press)

"I know it’s a popular thing to talk about us adding to our squad – more have left our club than have come in,” said Higgins. “Larne have kept all of their players and added to it, but apparently we’ve ended up title favourites, which is fine and we will embrace it.

"It’s a bit disrespectful to them in my own opinion, then you have Gary talking about ‘Galacticos’ and all this rubbish...he has a few decent players himself.

"I think people just like talking about us at the minute for whatever reason and trying to put pressure on us, but nobody puts pressure on us more than ourselves and we’re trying to get better every week.

"We’ve lads who have won leagues, we have experienced players, but we have young players here too emerging.

"You look at the emergence of Senan Devine, of Cameron Stewart over the last year, Ben Wylie, who anybody in the country could have signed because he was available and in the last six months at Portadown.

"Now everybody is telling me how great Ben Wylie is as a player, but they all could have signed him.

"We don’t just go out and sign big names. Cameron Stewart was on his way out the door a year ago and for me, he’s as good as anything in the league.

"It’s the narrative, the running commentary, it’s the popular thing to say, but we’re developing players as well as signing good players.”

Henderson marked his Irish League debut by scoring just three minutes after replacing Cameron Stewart before Doherty doubled Coleraine’s advantage.

Sean McAllister pulled one back for Dungannon to give the hosts hope of salvaging a positive result, but Matthew Shevlin then ensured Higgins’ side departed Co Tyrone with maximum points.

"Dungannon are an exceptional team with a really good squad of players,” added Higgins. “They downplay that better than anybody, they manage expectation better than any club in the league.

"If you look at their starting team, who is on their bench, who wasn’t available to them, they have a really talented squad.

"We’re delighted to come here on the opening day of the season where we knew they’d come out of the traps and to manage the game the way we did, score three goals and could have scored more, is very pleasing.”