Tiernan Lynch admits silverware success continues to breed confidence at Larne

​Lynch guided the Inver Reds to a fourth consecutive Co Antrim Shield on Tuesday evening and will be hoping that it can provide a springboard to go on and retain their Premiership title.

They’ll look to close the gap on current leaders Linfield this evening when they host the league’s bottom side Newry City with Lynch aiming to compete in every competition they enter.

"You look at Glentoran and they were probably looking for that spark which kind of kicked us off (in 2021).

"The longer you get into these competitions, the further you go and the more you start winning them, it definitely starts breeding confidence that you can win tournaments and you deserve to be there.

"We talked to the players before the game that everyone talks about money in the game, but nobody remembers money.

"People remember the history-makers, the legacy-makers and when Tomas (Cosgrove) is sitting with his grandchildren he'll not put out the money that he made, but the medals that he won.

"That's the key and when you go into these games it's probably easy to think 'it's the Co Antrim Shield' or 'it's the League Cup' - not for me.

"I think all those medals are equally as important.

"Anything we're entering we're entering to try and win.

"We feel now as a club that we're not arrogant enough to say we should be winning and we must win, but we're confident enough to say we want to be there and want to get to the latter stages of all competitions.”

Lynch has continued to learn more about his team, and himself, since guiding Larne back to the top-flight in 2019 as Championship winners and feels his squad now possess more strings to their bow.

"I think as a team you grow and learn,” he added. "I know I learn as a manager and when you reflect on our early stages it was just football at all costs.

"We probably didn't know anything else.

"Without scudding ourselves, there are times where you have to roll your sleeves up, weather a storm and keep yourselves in the game until you can play again.

"We always want to try and play, we always want to ideally finish games strong, start them strong and play the football they work so hard at every day, but it doesn't always work like that.

"They took a bit of a pasting on Saturday because although we won 2-0, we weren't very good.

"If anything, Dungannon probably outplayed us for parts of that game and that wasn't good enough for us.

"They knew that and just the characters and type of boys they are, they rolled their sleeves up and went and put that right.

“We wouldn't have let losing the final define our season, but the spirits will be very different winning it than they would have been if we lost it.

"I don't think it would have changed how we approach Newry or the last 13 league games, but definitely it'll be easier to get up and into work than it would have been had we been going in to analyse where it went wrong."