Gary Haveron highlights 'great deal of trust' in squad depth after continuing unbeaten Premiership start

Haveron made four changes to the starting line-up which defeated Bangor on Tuesday evening as his side manage a hectic fixture schedule.

Despite their Premiership success, Larne have struggled to pick up results at Shamrock Park – the Inver Reds had lost their last three matches in Portadown prior to Saturday’s triumph.

The reigning champions went ahead after eight minutes when Tomas Cosgrove pounced on a defensive mistake before showing composure to round goalkeeper Jamie Barry.

Larne were then reduced to 10 men when Kevin O’Hara was shown a straight red card for a high challenge, but Haveron’s men kept their cool to secure maximum points with Sean Graham striking in the second half.

With a number of games pushed back due to European involvement, Larne are playing catch up – and Haveron has highlighted the importance of using his entire squad.

“You can’t try and flog the life out of the same players...we have three games in seven days,” Haveron told the club’s media channel. “We have a game on Tuesday so you have to freshen up the squad.

"There’s a great deal of trust in every single player when they put on the shirt, they’re more than capable of doing the same job as somebody who comes out.

"I believe in the squad, I believe in what we have as a group, and you can see that with the impact the subs had coming off the bench.

"You have to utilise every player you have at your disposal. You just want to keep going and jump into the next game as soon as possible.”

Larne had to play for over an hour at a numerical disadvantage following O’Hara’s dismissal – a decision which Haveron didn’t agree with.

"I’m really proud of how we reacted to the sending off,” added Haveron. “It's harsh.

"His foot is high, I’m not denying that, but it’s still harsh because I don’t think there’s a great deal of intent to try and hurt anybody.

"Kevin started off very lively and was running the channels, it’s just really unfortunate his afternoon has ended so early.

"We got off to a decent start, I think what a lot of people won’t see is the pitch was very dry and sticky, it was very difficult. The boys were saying about it in the warm-up and again afterwards about how the ball wasn’t moving as freely through the grass as you would have liked.

"We caught them early doors, capitalised on a mistake by them, it was a great finish by Tomas – he tells me he used to be a striker!

"The sending off means we have to be pragmatic, we have to understand we can’t go chasing the game, we have to get back into a shape.

"I felt at half-time we needed to make a change and it was no slant on Mark or Montel, I thought Mark was excellent on the ball and his distribution was really good Montel’s work rate was really good.

"I needed to change the shape and bring on another player who was going to play a little bit higher, I felt they were getting too much ball in central areas.

"I felt it worked really well and we catch them with a second goal with a great bit of play from Matty Lusty and Sean Graham.

"Our game management after was really good.”