'That is why we are champions' - Larne's Gary Haveron full of praise for fightback victory over Cliftonville
Larne’s Gary Haveron reflected on a fightback 3-1 win over Cliftonville as “that is why we are champions” on Friday.
Haveron, a first-team coach at the defending Irish League champions, watched his squad recover from conceding the game’s opening goal at Solitude to come home with full points and move up to third in the Sports Direct Premiership table.
Rory Donnelly broke the deadlock for the hosts but Larne got back on track off Tomas Cosgrove.
A penalty kick for Andy Ryan made it 2-1 – with Cliftonville reduced to 10 men off a Jonny Addis red card for the spot-kick incident.
Substitute Paul O’Neill wrapped up the points with a back-post header for Larne.
"At half-time the gaffer (Tiernan Lynch) didn't miss them," said Haveron on BBC Sport NI. “He made it clear that the first half was nothing like us.
"But the second half, that first 15 minutes, was exactly what he asked for - that hunger, that desire, getting forward and getting after them and we blew them away in that first 15 minutes.
“It’s hard to put your finger on it (first-half performance), we have played a lot of games in a short period of time and there were big changes made from Tuesday night but we were lacklustre, they were hungrier and first to every ball and caused us problems.
"But that is why we are champions - we picked ourselves up off the canvas, came out fighting and got what we deserved in the end."