Carrick Rangers manager Stephen Baxter insists his side won’t be taking anything for granted despite carrying a healthy advantage into Friday’s Premiership promotion/relegation play-off second-leg showdown against Annagh United.

A first half blitz at the BMG Arena earlier this week, which included a Danny Gibson hat-trick, helped Carrick leave with a 5-2 victory as they took one major step towards preserving top-flight status.

Craig Taylor’s late strike has given Ciaran McGurgan’s outfit, who are competing in their third play-off across the past four years, a slim lifeline ahead of their trip to Taylors Avenue, but Carrick are overwhelming favourites to complete next season’s Premiership line-up.

Baxter has previously experienced play-off pressure during his successful Irish League career, scoring a hat-trick to help keep Crusaders up in 2001 after a 4-3 aggregate success over Lisburn Distillery, and says Carrick won’t be underestimating Annagh’s threat.

placeholder image — Paul Heatley scored a brace in Tuesday's win over Annagh United. (Photo by Andrew McCarroll/Pacemaker Press)

"It's still finely poised...three goals for any manager will be a great advantage but no-one takes anything for granted in football,” he said. "You can only ever look after yourself, your own preparation, all the bits and pieces done no-one ever sees.

"We got a lot of stuff right but I didn't underestimate this team whatsoever and I won't underestimate them for the second leg.

"They brought a boy on (Taylor) with a huge long throw and in the second half they were trying to change the rhythm of the game.

"So we have to be prepared for what comes our way...we knew the style of play they had, we knew we had to not get drawn into that and try to work the ball a little bit better if we could.

"Annagh deserve so much respect, they've fought their way into this and we had to deal with that ball into our box.

"There's a lot of thinking will go in behind it.

"It was H&W Welders, Annagh United and Limavady United (in play-off contention) – we were looking at all three then had to narrow it down very quickly.

"There's no real footage on these teams so we had a lot of people watching and picked up a little bit of information then got a video to break down their Saturday game.

"So much goes into it really...so whether we go into Friday with the same tweaks, do something different or tweak slightly, I'll look at it and look at the personnel.”

Gibson has been Carrick’s star player since arriving from Glentoran ahead of last season, scoring 21 goals across all competitions in his debut campaign and has racked up another 15 this term.

“I said to him during training last night (Monday) ‘I scored in a play-off game away from home then scored a hat-trick to keep our club up so you've got to do the same’,” added Baxter. "But it's important you keep tuned in and finish the job.

"It brings huge pressure...we carry the weight and responsibility of keeping a football club in the division.

"We've got to work really, really hard and there's still so much to do."