Nathan Rooney insists Larne still confident heading into Premiership opener despite European defeat
Larne manager Nathan Rooney insists his side will still enter their Premiership opener against Coleraine full of confidence despite Thursday’s 3-0 Conference League third qualifying round first-leg loss to Portuguese outfit Santa Clara.
Following dramatic penalties shootout successes against FK Auda and Prishtina, the Inver Reds’ European hopes were left hanging by a thread as the visitors scored three times in 10 first half minutes at the Ballymena Showgrounds.
Former Porto star Wendell opened the scoring before Brazilian striker Gabriel Silva struck a quickfire brace, leaving Rooney’s men with an almost impossible task heading to Portugal next week.
Santa Clara finished fifth in Liga Portugal last term to earn a spot in Europe for only the third time in their history and navigated past Varaždin of Croatia in the previous round, winning 3-2 on aggregate.
Just like Larne, they’ll get their league campaign underway on Sunday with a trip to Famalicao before preparing for the second leg at the Estadio de Sao Miguel.
Rooney’s side are priced as second favourites for Premiership title glory by bookmakers ahead of the new season and he says their confidence won’t be hampered by Thursday’s result.
"We’ll have confidence from how we’ve been playing and also understanding that we can get through tough periods,” Rooney told the club’s media channel. “The fitness will be high.
"There will be a bit of fatigue having played a lot of games before the season. We need to look at how we get that freshness back into the players, but we have so much belief and I want to get back to how we’ve been playing over recent weeks.
"That’s the challenge now.”
While Aaron Donnelly and Conor McKendry have started in all five of Larne’s European matches to date, they’ll miss the opening stage of the Premiership season after receiving red cards in the final match of last term against Glentoran.
Rooney sees it as an opportunity for others to step up in their absence and wants his players to seize it.
"The attitude from the subs coming in as well...we didn’t make many subs in the first game, a little bit more in Prishtina and a couple of tonight as well so the boys have been training ever so well,” added Rooney. “We've tried to keep everybody’s fitness at a similar level, but the attitude from boys stepping in as well, they’ve given the side as much running as they can.
"It’s their opportunity now to step in. We’ve got good quality in those attacking positions and I hope that somebody can kick on and grab the headlines over the coming weeks.”