Burns: ‘Competition breeds success’

colerainefc.com caught up with Aaron Burns after he made his comeback from injury during last weekend’s win against Glentoran…

The attacker had been sidelined since before Christmas with an Achilles injury but made his return as Coleraine swept to a 2-0 victory against Gary Smyth’s side.

The Banbridge man admits it was a frustrating time on the sidelines but is delighted to be back amongst the action.

“It was brilliant to get back onto the pitch,” he said.

“It’s been a long ten weeks so it’s nice to be back amongst the boys.

“I’ve been training the last few weeks and I’m feeling good but it’ll take me four or five games to get back up to scratch again.

“The plan was to take me off after 60 minutes.

“I don’t think it would have been too clever to play 90 minutes.

“It was great to ease myself back in ahead of a big game next week and I will get another two training sessions under my belt.”

Saturday’s fixture marked the first time that Burns was able to play competitively with several of the new faces at The Showgrounds and the ex-Linfield man insists the increasing squad depth can only be a good thing moving forward.

“There is definitely more competition for places now,” he added.

“If you want to be successful you need that in a squad.

“Competition breeds success and if you look at the top two or three teams in the league they have two players for each position and we have that now.

“There are big things to come from this group.”

The Bannsiders turn their attentions to Irish Cup duty on Friday night and Burns knows there is enough quality in the Coleraine ranks to retain the trophy won last year.

“When you look at the draw it’s a great chance to progress to another Irish Cup final if we can overcome Larne,” he concluded.

“We won’t be taking them for granted on Friday night as they are a good side.

“But we have too much quality in our team to be going out in a quarter-final of an Irish Cup, so we will be going there looking to progress.”