The 32-year-old struck late in the second half to earn the east Antrim team an historic win in the tournament – Larne became the first Irish League team to triumph at the league phase.
Having already lost against Molde, Shamrock Rovers, St Gallen, Olimpija and Dinamo Minsk, the Inver Park men were given little hope against the crack Belgian side, but they proved the doubters wrong.
Cosgrove’s party piece came only 24 hours of agreeing a new contract at Larne – it also boosted the club’s coffers to the tune of £332,000.
“I’m the longest serving player at the club; skipper on the night and I’ve just signed a contract extension, so I think it was written in the stars for me to get the winner,” he beamed. “Everything seemed to fall into place.
“My little boy was mascot and my mum rarely goes to a game, but she was there, I spotted her right at the end. I couldn’t have wished for a better night.
“And, my partner’s father had a bet on me to score the first goal at 100-to-one. So, hopefully, there is a few quid coming my way!”
Cosgrove admitted after the club’s poor run of results in the competition, it was great to finish on a high.
“It was special, getting the first win was special,” he went on. “We chatted about it at half-time. We didn’t want to be the club with zero points.
“We thought our chance had gone last week when beaten by Dinamo Minsk. We knew Gent would come and be really up for the game.
“I think the permutations were if they scored enough goals against us, they could still go through to the next phase. I said to the boys, this could be our last time ever on this stage, let’s go out and make it special.
“Let’s give the last 45 minutes a right go. It worked out at the end. Thankfully, we were not the team to finish bottom of the group.”
Cosgrove believes Larne will be bigger and stronger for the European experience.
“It’s been a learning curve,” he went on. “When you analyse our games, we haven’t been too far off it. We were right in the Molde game, but we just hadn’t got enough belief when we were on the ball.
“Undoubtedly, the Shamrock Rovers result was the most disappointing. We were really poor on the night. We all held up our hands; we let everyone down on the night.
“But the next few games, we were more solid defensively and beaten by the odd goal.
“So, I asked the boys, what have we got to lose against Gent. We showed what kind of a team we were; we were all brave on the ball. We played with two strikers (Matty Lusty and Andy Ryan) and they cause them a lot of damage.
“We have learnt that everyone must be on the A game in these European matches. We have seen what Shamrock Rovers can do (in the tournament) in terms of them qualifying. We are not a million miles away from them.
“We’ve got to learn from the experience. We are here for a reason; we have every right to be on the group stages. We all stood by each other; our belief grew as the game went on. The more mistakes they made the more the belief rose.
“We said at half-time, let’s just go out and have a go. Thankfully, it worked out.
“But this must be the turning point for us. To be honest, we have been flat (as a team) this season; there hasn’t even been any spark from the fans.
“We’ve had poor results in Europe and our performances domestically have been dull and poor, but everyone was bouncing after this win. The fans were absolutely thrilled.
“Hopefully, that will renew their belief and they will now come out and cheer us on because we will need them. We are playing catch-up in terms of our League position, but there is no reason why we can’t put a run together.”
