Molde v Larne: Northern Irish club set for Uefa Conference debut

On Thursday, Larne’s dream of European football becomes a reality. But as Lynch says, “why shouldn’t we be here?”.

Thursday’s game in mountainous western Norway is the first of six extremely difficult fixtures.

Larne will also face Shamrock Rovers, St Gallen, Olimpija, Dinamo Minsk and Gent in their first European campaign.

Now a leading side in Northern Ireland, they will be the underdogs in each and every fixture, and that lack of expectation from the outside provides an opportunity.

There is nothing to lose, yet everything to gain.

“It’s massive. Who knows what the outcomes are going to be, but the big thing for us is that we go in there with confidence,” added Lynch.

“There’s a huge amount of work has gone into this on the field and off the field, now we want to do ourselves proud, do the club, the fans and the league proud.

“It’s going to be extremely difficult but we’re not here to make up any numbers. I see we are expected to finish bottom but we have to take that as an opportunity to step up to the challenge.”

And for Lynch, the time for talking is over.

“I’m not the type of person who jumps up or down and bangs chests,” he added.

“But that doesn’t take away with how proud and privileged I am to manage this football club.

“It doesn’t take away from how proud I’ll be when that team walks out onto the pitch, for everyone involved and everyone who has been on this journey.

“I think we have to stop talking about it now. We have to understand that we’re here, and why shouldn’t we be here?

“Now we want to go and give a good account of ourselves.”