Irish Premiership: ‘We need to get back to winning ways’ – Tiernan Lynch on Linfield match

Larne have had a week to reflect on their 1-0 defeat to Ballymena, a rare luxury, especially given their domestic and European commitments which will see them play at least twice a week until the end of December.

Lynch hopes the extra time on the training ground this week can help Larne secure their first league win of the season at Windsor Park.

“When we underperform, we don’t shy away from it. We look it straight in the eye and use it to motivate us for the future,” he explains.

“It was nice to be back on the pitch and get a four-day lead. Hopefully we can repeat that on Saturday.”

The 44-year-old is also trying to bring a number of new players up to speed, so that he has the right selection to compete at both national and European level.

“We are trying to integrate new players into our team and it takes a while for them to get used to what we do, so we have to be patient,” Lynch added.

“We hope that now that we have played a number of games and have players playing, we will quickly catch up.”

Lynch admits the demanding schedule will test his team’s limits, but he hopes they can adapt quickly and enjoy so many games in a short space of time.

“We’ve worked it out. From now until December 30th, we’ll have a game every 3.6 days. So there are challenges that we haven’t had to deal with before,” he continued.

“Normally we are a team that trains four days before the match with a set training schedule, but now we had to turn everything upside down and start from scratch.

“This was the challenge we wanted to take on and we’re happy to take on it. But it’s probably going to take a while before we really get the hang of it.”