Mclaughlin using injury woe as major spur
IF there was a season for a Coleraine player to miss through injury, the 2017-18 campaign wasn’t ideal.
The Bannsiders lifted the Irish Cup for the sixth time in the club’s history and finished as runners-up in the league table, losing out to Crusaders on an exciting final day.
Striker James Mclaughlin didn’t play a minute in either competition, having suffered a cruciate ligament injury in pre-season.
Fast forward two years and, with his hopes of providing the extra spark required in another tight title tussle scuppered by the coronavirus pandemic, he’s determined to have his day in the sun in the Irish Cup as the Bannsiders face rivals Ballymena United on Monday for a chance to play Glentoran or Cliftonville in Friday’s final.
He’s not the only one either.
Both Lyndon Kane and Josh Carson also missed the 2018 victory over Cliftonville through injuries picked up before the decider.
“We have a lot of boys still in the changing room that won the Irish Cup that year but the three of us who missed out have that driving hunger that we want one as well,” Mclaughlin said.
“The majority of our squad was there and played that day but the rest of us want one now.
“That’s driving us on and obviously the rest of the guys, once you win one, you want another.”
Mclaughlin started and scored in February’s League Cup final win over Crusaders but there’s little doubt an Irish Cup success would mark the pinnacle of a rather unconventional career path.
Having left Linfield, where he played as a junior, he joined Ballymena in 2009, thanks to a mutual friend with United physio Gordon Mccartney. After just eight substitute appearances in the Premiership, his brief toptier career seemed over soon after his 20th birthday.
“I just wanted to play football,” he explained, which he went on to do at lower-league sides Portstewart, Limavady United and Ballybogey. “It was then that I started to enjoy the sport again. All I wanted to do was play.”
Then in 2015, a return to the top flight beckoned with Coleraine. Scoring 20 goals in his first season with the Bannsiders, he hit the ground running.
“There was more of a hunger there,” he said. “I wanted to do well. When I was at Ballymena I was still young. I didn’t see where it could go but when I came to Coleraine, I realised I could make something of it.”
Two seasons hitting double figures in the Premiership made him the club’s top marksman before the injury nightmare.
“It was easy to watch the boys enjoying it but it was hard as well knowing I was missing out,” he recalled. “Once I got back into training after a couple of sessions, everything was back to normal. There was no fear of the injury stopping me.
“Whenever it first happened, the physio told me there would come a day where I forgot about it and I’d be totally back to normal. It felt like such a long way away when he said it and sort of unreal but it was right.”
It’s fitting that Mclaughlin, now 30, goes into the closing stages of the Irish Cup back in tip-top condition and, from before lockdown, on a run of three goals from his last five games.
“I’m back to the way I felt that first season I came in to Coleraine,” he said. “I feel sharper and like I’ve really got my eye in again.”
Monday’s meeting should have been a packed house with thousands of supporters.
It’s lost something without them, Mclaughlin admits that, but if he can finally get his hands on an Irish Cup medal, it’ll be just as sweet.