Friday 23rd February
Kick Off 7.45pm
Tomorrow night first faces fourth in the Sports Direct Premiership as we head to Inver Park to face the reigning champions.
Leaders Larne will look to maintain their unbeaten home league record, in a season in which they have so far recorded 12 victories from 15 games at Inver Park. Indeed, they have only lost 1 league game in the entire campaign: a surprise 1-0 reverse at Loughgall in late September. Key to this has been an ultra-mean defensive unit; Larne have only conceded 16 goals in 29 games and no team has scored against them in a Premiership match in 2024. Our inform striker David Fisher is the only player to net against them in the last seven games in all competitions, having grabbed a second half equaliser in the County Antrim Shield Final.
Larne’s main January transfer business was to further strengthen the spine of the side with the signings of former Glentoran midfielder Cricky Gallagher from Cliftonville and former Shrewsbury Town and Doncaster Rovers defender Ro-Shaun Williams, the latter signed to replace Craig Farquhar after his move to Crystal Palace. Both have established themselves in the starting 11, while striker Isaac Westendorf has featured from the bench after returning from a loan spell at Ballymena United. Full backs Sean Want and Michael Glynn and midfielder Joe Thomson have been missing from the squad in recent games, but manager Tiernan Lynch will still have a plethora of options to choose from.
Warren Feeney: “Last week’s performance against Newry was excellent. Overall our form has been decent over the past couple of months and last week the lads were on the front foot from the start as I wanted and they did what I have always thought they were capable of. The mood around the club and at training has been great all week and we need to use that to continue improving.
Obviously, Larne are a very good team and tomorrow night will be a challenge for us. The matches we’ve had against them so far have been fairly even but each time we’ve lost by the odd goal. With the way things are in the top three, all the pressure will be on Larne to win this one but we’ll be going there full of confidence and I’m definitely looking forward to it.
On the injury front I think tomorrow night is still a bit early for some of our lads who’ve been out but hopefully we’ll be pretty much approaching full strength in the next couple of weeks. It was great to see Singo back in action last week as we’ve missed him.
If any away supporter tickets for this game are still available they can be purchased HERE.
Photographs by JOHNNY CALDWELL
