Boss can’t fault Larne’s effort

“Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as we had hoped against a very good Ards team, but we gave it a lash and I’m not too despondent.” said McAlinden (pictured, right), whose team has a quiet Irish Cup weekend ahead, following their exit from the competition at the hands of Carrick Rangers a fortnight ago.

“I thought we matched Niall Currie’s men in most departments, the notable difference being that they got goals at the start of either half, silly goals from our point of view.

“And we all know that if you do that against teams like Ards, the likelihood is that you will not survive.

“However, we showed decent character to try to get back into the game and, after we pulled a goal back, the momentum was certainly with us and the problem thereafter was that we didn’t create much in the way of scoring opportunities.

“That said, I felt we should have had a penalty near the end and that impression was then compounded when I viewed the video afterwards. But we didn’t get it and that’s the be all and end all of it,” said the manager, who then hightailed it to Scotland for the ‘Old Firm’ game as part of a brief visit to the in-laws.

“Now we will have a couple of weeks to prepare for the next assignment against Donegal Celtic. It’s a fixture we will obviously be very keen to win,” added the manager who has now made three signings midway through the season.

Following on the heels of Darren Stuart, a midfielder with a penchant for pressing forward, and defender Kevin Bradley, on the way to Inver Park during the transfer window was Neil Lowry, who is another quality player.

“He used to be at Ballymena United and he’s an attacking player who is equally good at going through the middle or playing from the wing,” explained McAlinden.

That makes it three in to replace the three departures - Owen Thompson, Ross Davidson and and Matthew Rooney, so the squad remains much the same, in terms of size anyway.

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