DAVID HEALY PINPOINTS WHERE LINFIELD'S TITLE BID FALTERED AS LARNE'S 'NEW DIMENSION' HAILED

As Linfield's title challenge came to an end following the 1-1 draw with Larne on Monday night boss David Healy reflected on where it had faltered.

Healy's men threw everything at the Invermen in the title showdown at Windsor Park before coming up short, but by that stage the damage had already been done. The Blues had given themselves too much to do in the end in their bid to wrestle the Gibson Cup away from Tiernan Lynch's side.

The worst thing for Healy was that a lot of it was self-inflicted as he admitted afterwards. ”The league outcome certainly wasn’t decided on the game performance tonight, I was delighted with the players,” he said.

"I don’t want to be too critical – we’ve an Irish Cup final coming up – but we shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times over the last three or four months.”

The draw maintained Larne's three-point advantage over Linfield, but with a +17-goal advantage over their nearest rivals with Saturday's final round of games nothing more than a procession. Healy has magnanimous despite his side's title dreams ending and was quick to praise Larne's achievements before adding the Blues would be pushing them all the way again next season

He said: "Congratulations to Kenny [Bruce] and Gareth [Clements] – two good guys who have brought a new dimension to the football pyramid in this country. And Tiernan [Lynch] and his staff take immense credit for not only being successful this year but backing up being successful last year.

"Where they are at the minute, a team like Linfield and others are trying hard to peg them back and we’ll certainly be trying to do that going forward.”

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2024-04-23T10:52:32Z dg43tfdfdgfd