Tomas Cosgrove believes Larne’s first Uefa Conference League victory can be a catalyst for the rest of their season.
His second-half winner helped the Irish Premiership champions seal an historic 1-0 win over Belgian side Gent on a night when his children were Larne’s match mascots.
After five defeats in their previous league phase fixtures, victory on Thursday meant Larne finished their debut campaign in Europe on a high and earned them over £300,000 in prize money.
“Everything just seems to be written in the stars,” an elated Cosgrove told BBC Sport NI after the match.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better night. I never thought I was going to do it for an Irish League team, but to do it and my kids were mascots tonight.
“I’m proud and speechless. It’s something you dream of when you’re a kid. You’re watching European football on TV and you want to be that match winner, and I did it here tonight.”
‘He owes me a couple of quid!’
Cosgrove’s winner came in the 74th minute at a time when Gent had begun to take control of the game.
The defender managed to get the better of his marker after latching onto perfect delivery from Sean Graham.
The win was enough make sure Larne did not finish bottom of the Conference League, which was Cosgrove’s main aim going into the tie.
“You don’t want to be the club with zero points. We thought our chance was gone last week if we’re going to be honest,” Cosgrove said.
“I said to the boys at half time that this could be our last time ever on this stage.
“We didn’t want to be the team to finish bottom so to get off bottom place is great.”
There was extra celebration amongst Cosgrove’s supporting crew, with the Larne skipper on the night admitting his partner’s father would have to “owe me a couple of quid” after backing him at the bookmakers to score the first goal at odds of 100/1.
‘We’re not a million miles away’
By reaching this stage of a major European competition, Larne broke new ground for Irish League clubs. Never before had a club from Northern Ireland reached the group or league stage of one of the Uefa club competitions.
For League of Ireland side Shamrock Rovers, who beat Larne 4-1 in October, this stage is more familiar.
Their 10th place finish in the league stage earned them a spot in the newly introduced play-off round in January and that is the aspiration for Cosgrove and Larne.
“You’ve seen what Shamrock Rovers can do and we’re not a million miles away from them,” Cosgrove said.
“Look what they’ve done – they’ve gone and qualified and we’re so disappointed because they have they hammered us [when we played each other]. So we’re like, we can have the belief, we can do it.”
On the domestic stage, Larne are currently in ninth position and 22 points off league leaders Linfield but have six games in hand after their European exploits this season.
With fixtures now coming quickly for Gary Haveron’s side, Cosgrove believes this win in Europe will see them kick on in their quest for a third consecutive league title.
“Hopefully we can get a run together and catch up with our games in hand,” Cosgrove said.
“Until it’s mathematically impossible, we’ll give it [winning the league] a go. We have to play Linfield another two time, we have to play the top six – and we’re only a few points behind if we win all our games in hand so of course it’s possible.
“Hopefully this’ll be the catalyst to push us on and we go again on Monday [against Dungannon Swifts].”