'It's only half-time' - Queen's promotion play-off joy over Ballyclare but with second-leg warning

The students stunned their Championship opponents Ballyclare Comrades at the Dub on Tuesday night as Jack Ovens, Dan Mairs and Joseph Sheridan all netted in a 3-0 success ahead of Friday night's second-leg at Dixon Park.

As the prospect of promotion to the second-tier is within their fingertips, Lavery says his squad treated the game like any other despite coming up against a team in the division above.

"Without a doubt I'd have taken the result before the game," he said.

"It's a good scoreline but it's only half-time in the tie and I know that's a cliche.

"Football can change in 45 minutes, never mind 90, so we know there’s still a big job to do.

"We went into the game with no mindset whatsoever. We weren’t focused on anything other than facing an established Championship team but there was certainly no underdog mentality.”

So, what’s the plans between now and the second-leg on Friday night?

Lavery replied: “Recently, we have been playing Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday and so on...so we are used to playing three games a week for a long time.

"Ballyclare was just the next game which happened to be on a Tuesday night and then the next game is on Friday.

"We have done our homework on them and we will have the same processes in terms of being ready for Friday,”