Tiernan Lynch celebrates as champions Larne cope with 'target on your back'

​The Inver Reds have all-but defended their Gibson Cup crown after drawing 1-1 with Linfield at Windsor Park – a superior goal difference of 17 means the coronation is only a formality this weekend – and caps off another memorable campaign for Lynch’s men.

With more points, wins and goals scored this term compared to the club’s maiden success 12 months ago, they’ve been able to deal with the pressure of the champions tag to win once again in fine fashion.

Becoming the first provincial Irish League club to secure back-to-back Premiership triumphs since Portadown in the early-1990s comes just five years since their promotion from the Championship.

"No, we probably didn’t envisage back-to-back – we always envisaged having a crack at winning the league,” he said. “Our goal was to make sure we won a league title and see if we could build on that.

"Potentially doing it back-to-back was something we didn’t give a huge amount of consideration to.

"We talked a lot about wanting a seat at the top table and a team that would always be around challenging, but if we can win back-to-back it would be a hell of an achievement for all involved.”

Comparing last season’s title run to this bid, Lynch added: “It has been tough...there are so many good teams, managers and you definitely have that target on your back.

"I’ve said on a number of occasions that I’ve gone to numerous games midweek for the team you’re playing on a Saturday and they just played totally differently against us.

"Linfield have been facing that for years and had to overcome it, so we had to learn to overcome that and, thankfully, on most occasions we did.”

While feeling his Larne side underperformed, Lynch was happy to leave with the required result which puts them on the brink.

"We were awful,” he said. “We saved our worst for last and Linfield need to take credit for that.

“We’ll take credit for the way we defended their deliveries, but the one positive we’ll take is we got what we hopefully needed.”