Conference League: Larne left to ‘look in the mirror’ after Euro loss to Shamrock Rovers at Windsor Park

Having already drawn with APOEL, Rovers, who still have games against TNS, Rapid Vienna, Borac Banja Luka and Chelsea to come, have given themselves a real chance of progressing to the next round.

Indeed, Bradley challenged his players to think not just of a spot in the knock-outs but an automatic place in the last-16 that would be earned by finishing in the top eight of this new format.

“Why not? Why can’t it be our aim?” he said.

“Let’s go and try and do it. I don’t see why we should put a limit on what we can do here.

“European football is tough. If you get it wrong on the night, you get beat. They punish mistakes, but we’ve put ourselves in a really strong position, so why limit our expectations of what we can do?

“We’ve never been a group to shy away from expectations and our standards, and we don’t start now. We’ve put ourselves in a position to qualify automatically, so let’s try and do it.”

Lynch admitted that such ambitions are another step along Larne’s journey.

“We can suck our thumbs and feel sorry for ourselves or we can look to put this right.

“If we’re serious about Larne being a team that are going to do this again, maybe even get to the stage where you can potentially compete, there’s things that need to change. It won’t be overnight. It’s a process.

“It took us eight years to get to this point. We have to keep learning, keep improving.”