Larne captain Jeff Hughes accepts the Inver Reds ‘let themselves down’ after crashing out of the Europa Conference League to little-known St Joseph’s.
Tiernan Lynch’s men were favourites to progress after last week’s 0-0 draw in Gibraltar but suffered a shock 1-0 home defeat in the return leg on Thursday night.
Mark Randall was red carded in the 78th minute and it got worse less than two minutes later when the Saints bagged their winner through Julian Valarino.
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“We let ourselves down,” said Hughes. “It’s very, very hard to take. We just weren’t good enough and we’ve got to take it on the chin.
“We had a lot of possession and territory but we never really created enough. We didn’t have a cutting edge and it proved costly.”
The fact Larne failed to score over two legs against St Joseph’s, who finished third in the Gibraltar league last season, was an added frustration for Lynch and his players.
“We just didn’t have that cutting edge,” Hughes told Larne's YouTube channel. “I think Lee (Bonis) was left isolated a lot and he didn’t get enough help from us.”
While Randall’s sending off for a second bookable offence was a hammer blow, Hughes insists that one moment can’t be blamed for Larne’s second leg defeat.
“When you go down to 10 men we have a plan and we know how we should play and we didn’t do it,” he said. “Although it doesn’t help, it was our own fault we lost the goal.
“It was nothing to do with the sending off. I’ll not take the easy route and blame the sending off. It was down to us 10 on the pitch.”
While Larne pocketed an estimated £212,000 for playing in the first qualifying round, they lost out on a further windfall by failing to reach the next stage of the competition.
The Inver Park men, who progressed to the third qualifying round last year, also missed out on a high-profile clash with Slavia Prague in the next round.
“To be honest we weren’t really thinking of the next round,” insisted Hughes. “As was proved (by this result), you can’t look too far ahead.
“It’s obviously great to progress in any competition and we let ourselves down. We’ll be in tomorrow (Friday) to see where we went wrong and how we can fix it.”
Larne kick off their Danske Bank Premiership campaign with a home clash against Glentoran on August 13.
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