POINTS make prizes and Larne manager Paul Millar wants his players to go out and pick up three wins before the end of the year – something he believes is eminently possible and would hoist Larne up into a serious title-challenging position.
That’s a tall order in a league where every team seems to believe they can beat any other team on a given day and the evidence is there to suggest that such aspirations are deservedly held, with predictions of results now absolutely foolhardy exercis
es.
“This Saturday we face a difficult trip to play Ballymoney United and our next scheduled match is against Armagh City, while we also have a rearranged game against Bangor on December 30, so I am targeting three wins from those games to give our title ambitions a massive lift,” said Millar.
“I say that because, while we are playing three fixtures against clubs below us in the league table in the next couple of weeks, the same period will see most of the teams above us involved in some matches against one another – Donegal Celtic playing Limavady United, for example.
“Whilst I am happy enough to look ahead momentarily about those upcoming fixtures and what they would mean to us in terms of table positions etc, the fact is that we must, however, only concentrate on the next one in hand. One the face of it, you would be forgiven for thinking Ballymoney are struggling a bit, sitting down in 10th or 11th position, but closer inspection shows that they have had a lot of draws and have only been beaten twice this season.
"And we know how tough these opponents are because we played them twice in the CIS Cup and were held to a scoreless draw on their patch and only beat them 1-0 at Inver, Gary Rafferty scoring the winner.
“Joe McCall has a half-decent side assembled there. It’s a good catchment area in that they are in between Coleraine and Ballymena and can pick up players who have just failed to make it in the Premiership with both of those clubs.”
Millar urged: “It would be great to start those three target games with a win and we desperately need to get as many points as we can when the opportunity arises.”
The boss admitted Larne didn’t play very well in the weekend Irish Cup tie against Moyola, but the result was all that mattered to him: “We definitely need to play a lot better than that, but sometimes you have got to win ugly – and this was just one of those. A place in the draw for the Irish Cup was really all that mattered and we have got that.
“Often you can play well and fail to score and get hit by a sucker-punch goal. That was something that had to be avoided at all costs. Davy Larmour got the goal to settle us and, after we plodded along and prevented them from upsetting the applecart, he got a late second to kill off Moyola.
“We were all disappointed with the performance and that was very clear in the dressing room, which is another indication of how far we have come when we win 2-0 and are far from satisfied with the result.
“But look at the broader picture. In our last three games, we have won 7-0, 1-0 and 2-0 – that’s three wins, 10 goals scored and none conceded.
