Irish Premiership: ‘It was 100% the right call’ – Larne boss Haveron on abandonment

Despite frustration that the game could not continue Haveron and Glentoran assistant manager Tim McCann both understood why the decision was taken swiftly.

Both sides will now meet again on Tuesday night in the County Antrim Shield final at Seaview, with Larne hoping to win the competition for a fifth successive season.

“If the lights weren’t going to be able to come on and we weren’t going to be able to finish the game, there was little point in playing on and having the game abandoned in the dying stages as we lost the light,” Haveron added.

“We’ve both just agreed we’ll see each other on Tuesday,” McCann concurred.

“It doesn’t suit either team, you would rather have the points on the board, but we look forward to Tuesday and both sets of players will have more in their legs now as they’ve only played half a game.”

With the game to be rescheduled for a later date, Larne’s fixture pile-up in the league continues, with the Inver side now holding six games in hand over leaders Linfield.

Refusing to look for excuses, Haveron says that Larne must “get on with it” as they look to get back into the race to retain the Gibson Cup.

“It is one [more] game we could have done without, but it is what it is. With player safety in mind and when there was no confidence, the generator wasn’t going to start again it was 100% the right call,” he added.

“It is very unfortunate but there is not much we can do about it. It’s a headache for NIFL as much as it is for us, we need to find a date to squeeze this game back in but we need to deal with it when it comes back again.”