Rangers boss wary of

The Carrick Rangers manager is warning his players that this clash could be just the catalyst opposing manager Paul Millar needs for his team to kick-start their season.

“We’re doing rightly and now we just need to keep it going” said Small, following his team’s impressive 3-1 win over Glebe Rangers on Saturday in the league.

“But we don’t want to think we’re better than we are or that the opposition are struggling and that maybe we can win without putting in the 100 per cent effort required. Complacency is a threat I want to avert, so I will stressing that my players dare not let their guard down for an instant.

“The fact that Larne have had an up and down start to the season may make us look warm favourites, but there’ll be no better time for the visitors to do what they have to do to turn their fortunes around, which is by working harder and getting the result they crave to lift their spirits.

“This is just such a situation and Larne’s best performances to date have come in the cup competitions. They will need little to motivate them on Saturday and games have always been pretty tight between the teams in my time being involved.

“Over the last four years or so, Larne have probably had the better of the results. But last season I think we addressed the trend and I think we had two wins and they had one. The games are always played with a little bit of edge and I expect this to be the very same.

“There are a few players in each camp who have previously played with the opposition – Anthony Lagan, who is suspended for the game, and Liam Hogan were with Larne last year, while both their front men – Davy Larmour and Mark Craig – are former Carrick strikers and both will be keen to stick the ball in our net.

“But I’m happy with how we’re playing. On Saturday against Glebe Rangers we dominated the first-half and should have been further ahead than 1-0 through Noel Anderson at the break. A narrow lead is always vulnerable and so it proved as they came back at us and levelled. However, we showed character and fight and came back again strongly to win 3-1 via goals from Paul Heatley and Nathan McConnell.

“What the game proved to our players is that you need to transfer domination in good leads on the scoreboard. It’s no good having all the play if we then leave ourselves open to a kickback from the opposition. That we recovered from the setback and won was grand, but we can’t expect to do that all the time. We must punish teams when we’re on top” added Small.

A big crowd is expected at Taylor’s Avenue for the match between two teams who went close to winning the Steel and Sons Cup a couple of years ago, both of them being thwarted in the latter stages by Ards.