A jubilant Darrin Crawford saluted his Wellington Rec facet after their last-gasp fightback win dumped Metal Cup royalty Linfield Swifts out of the competitors.
The Brookvale outfit, who switched to the Ballymena Intermediate League over the summer time, had been trailing 3-1 early within the second half, solely to claw their manner again and win the sport on the dying, with a Ryan McNickle hat-trick and Crawford’s 23-year-old son Curtis’s winner deep in damage time firing the house facet by to the subsequent spherical the place they may face Dunmurry Rec.
Into the second yr of his rebuild on the Larne membership, the victory over the Wee Blues — finalists in three of the final 4 Christmas Day showpieces, and 11 instances outright winners — ranks as among the finest days of Crawford’s burgeoning reign.
“We’re happy to bits,” stated Crawford. “It was a wierd recreation to be trustworthy with you, a typical cup tie which ebbed and flowed.
“They went one up fairly early, after which we equalised shortly after. They had been 2-1 up at half-time and we weren’t enjoying properly, so we’d a number of selection phrases at half-time and made a change.
“Then they scored straight after half-time to make it 3-1 and at that stage, you’re considering it’s curtains.
“However we obtained a few set items, managed to get it again to 3-2 after which scored one other set piece for 3-3.
“They're younger group, by the way in which, some cracking younger gamers of their group, some smashers, and it may have gone both manner in the long run.
“However it was a giant scalp for us and it form of exhibits the progress we’re making. We’ve been enjoying properly the final couple of weeks however we simply haven’t been getting our rewards for it.
“Yesterday, the whole lot simply form of clicked the way in which we wished it too, so it’s good.”
Days like this have been few and much between for Wellington Rec who, previous to Crawford’s arrival, had been in seemingly terminal decline.
However the brand new man in cost has breathed new life into the membership, with their transfer into the BPIL providing them a recent begin, albeit towards stronger groups than they had been used to dealing with in Division 1C.
However regardless of a number of setbacks early on within the season, Crawford has been proud at how his group have acquitted themselves.
“We’re attempting to maneuver issues on, we’ve moved into a brand new league and it’s a better degree for us,” defined Crawford.
“The gamers are nonetheless getting accustomed to that, I’ve signed about 5 - 6 new gamers too, younger gamers, and other than one over 30, I feel the oldest is 24 or 25.
“The membership desires to progress. With all due respect to 1C, the league we're in now's clearly a much bigger step and we are able to entice higher gamers.
“The long run purpose for the membership is to get into Championship 2 the identical path Newington have performed.
“Folks may giggle at that however it's a must to have ambition, I wouldn’t be there if the membership wasn’t formidable sufficient and it bodes properly for the long run.
“It’s going to take time, younger gamers are going to make errors and they'll have good days and unhealthy days.
“We’ve performed 11 or 12 video games now, okay we obtained a little bit of a hiding by St James’s, however that was a wake-up name and we’ve discovered from that, we’re matching groups now and we simply must take our possibilities after we are on prime.
“However I’ve been actually happy thus far, it’s powerful, there’s no straightforward video games however that’s what we would like.”