LEAGUE CUP FINAL: Oran Kearney puts high value on trophy gains to advance Coleraine

External cash injections into Larne and Glentoran alongside European windfalls enjoyed by traditional domestic giants Linfield and Crusaders left Kearney having to box clever at Coleraine in a bid to bridge the gap.

Kearney’s previous campaign at Coleraine closed with Irish Cup glory and a league run sitting second only to champions Crusaders.

When he leads his players out this weekend in search of a second knockout reward, the one-off cup final will be played out against the backdrop of a Danske Bank Premiership title race in which only a single point separates the sides after 28 league games.

That rapid rise following Kearney’s return could be further gilded with a silverware success.

“From a financial viewpoint, the bar has definitely been raised,” said Kearney. “From a manager’s point-of-view, over my nine years you would always have hoped to be able to speak to the majority of players and have a chance of signing them.

“You may have been pipped at the post by others but probably now you are in an environment that, when certain players come into the mix, we cannot really compete and have that conversation.

“That brings an extra challenge and one you want to rise to meet.

“There are full-time clubs pushing on in their own way so what we have to do at Coleraine, until such times as someone wants to come here and do the same, is to find a way of ensuring we can compete.

“So again the work we do at the club is time-consuming and the players work really hard on the nights we are in but I also know the players do so much away from the club in terms of weight training and recovery and everything else that goes into it.

“We are able to bridge that gap so far and, thankfully, this season we don’t look as if we are behind these teams or cannot compete.

“That’s the challenge that we will have moving forward to put as much in place to ensure we can continue to compete.

“I look back on my time at St Mirren with a huge amount of pride and the pressure of that run-in over the final games to turn it around and stay up was sadistically enjoyable.

“I remember an early part of my time at Coleraine when things were not going particularly well.

“We went, I think, to Warrenpoint with 13 fit players and about eight games to go when we won 1-0.

“We got there and got over the line that season and I remember feeling that pressure.

“Cup finals and league runs are the opposite - they are joyous occasions and you’ve got to embrace everything that goes with it.

“You’ve the chance to get something that’s very rewarding.

“People, perhaps in Coleraine terms, may think what if I hadn’t gone away for that year, what could have been?

“So the key thing now is making up for lost time.

“We had a good transfer window in the summer, we had another in January so are starting to get that depth back we had a couple of years ago.

“With that the big challenge is this ability to hang on to the coat-tails of the big hitters.”