Larne's recent Irish Cup defeat at the hands of Limavady United was a sore one for everyone at the club to take. After making history by reaching the group stages of the UEFA Conference League the Invermen were hoping to kick on in the domestic front.

Their hopes of Irish Cup glory were extinguished by the excellent Roesiders, a result which could have derailed Larne's season completely. But they bounced back in style with back-to-back wins in the league over Crusaders and Cliftonville to get things back on track.

The Reds are back at Inver Park again this evening for the BetMcLean Cup semi-final with Gary Haveron insisting the hosts are determined to put the foot down in their pursuit of silverware and give their fans another big day out.

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"We let ourselves down against Limavady but we bounced back with two good wins in the league," said the Larne boss. "We want to give our fans more big days out. We've underperformed in the competition in recent seasons and by contrast Cliftonville have had a decent record, so it's going to be a difficult game. We will be putting every effort into getting to another final.

"It's a cup game so it's all to play for. They will want to come back down here and reverse the result from Friday night. We will look for more of the same and hopefully we will have a few bodies back.

"That will boost us going into the game and we can take real confidence from Friday night's performance and result. A clean sheet and two goals, added to the three on Tuesday night made it a good week for us.

"We showed both sides of our game with some of the football we played. Some of the football we played, especially on the break was fantastic, but we also showed the desire and hunger which has helped us win back-to-back titles.

Larne were down to the bare bones in attacking areas on Friday night with Andy Ryan, Paul O'Neill and Matty Lusty all missing due to injury, but Haveron is hoping they will be available again for tonight's big game.

"Andy was touch and go for Friday night, he probably wanted to play, but there was no point risking him when we didn't need to push him," he said. "Matty Lusty and Paul O'Neill should also be back in training, so it will be a boost to have those three available for selection again but they will have to do well to remove Dylan Sloan from the number 9 shirt."

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