WE DON’T WANT A ONE-OFF

Lynch aims to keep champs on top

LARNE may have rewritten their history books after securing the Irish League title but Tiernan Lynch insists they are already looking to the future.

The club has risen from the foot of the Championship to be crowned Premiership champions under Lynch’s management following the investment by Kenny Bruce.

The Larne boss says it hasn’t all been about the money and pointed to the work going on behind the scenes with the academy, which he feels will safeguard the future of the club.

“I don’t want to be part of something that’s a one-off and I know Kenny doesn’t want to be part of something that’s a one-off,” said Lynch after the 2-0 win at Crusaders on Friday that finally sealed the title. “We want to be sitting at the top of that table, that’s a definite. I think the work that has been put in over the last five or six years and the platforms that have been put in place, right from the academy to the first team and the things happening off the field, I hope we’ll stay at the top.

“People will always talk about Larne and we get that reputation for the money but if people really knew... we’ve had players return to part-time football elsewhere and earning more money and we’ve brought people here from part-time clubs taking pay cuts this season.

“Kenny was clear that he wasn’t going to throw money at players in the first team, that he wanted to put money into the ground, that he wanted to build foundations, he wanted that sustainability and thankfully we’ve been able to back that up on the pitch. “There was never really any timeframe put on it.

“Kenny put that target on my back when he talked about wanting to hear Champions League music after about three months!

“No, listen, he’s the one person who put his money where his mouth was, he deserves a huge amount of credit for what we have done.”

Goals from Andy Ryan and Lee Bonis in each half at Seaview put the Inver

Park men and their supporters in dreamland.

And Lynch revealed: “We went into Friday night’s game and the last slide from our pre-match presentation was that we just needed to find a way and it didn’t matter what that way looked like.

“I know that I bust their chops day in, day out about playing it the right way, principles and all the usual malarkey.

“But Friday night was not about that, it was about finding a way to get at least a point.

“We didn’t play for a point, we played to win the game, but the minimum requirement was a point and I thought the players were magnificent.

“I just hope that the players – who will now go down in history as the first ever Larne team to win a title – and the fans get to enjoy every minute of it.”