EIGHT DAYS AFTER Dundalk piled on the agony and condemned Finn Harps to their worst-ever League defeat, Ollie Horgan’s men picked up another unwanted ‘first’ last night.
It is the first time that Harps have lost at home to non-League opponents in the Cup and for some inside a sparsley populated Finn Park last night there were haunting memories of January 1997.
Then, Charlie McGeever’s team – also in their first season back in the Premier Division, just as Ollie Horgan’s squad of now are – meekly bowed out after a 2-1 defeat by Wayside Celtic at the Carlisle Grounds.
Last night, Greg Moorhouse was the match-winner and the night ended in deathly silence as Harps counted the cost of another poor defeat.
Picture caption: Sean Houston on the attack for Finn Harps against Crumlin United. Picture by Gary Foy, newsandsportfiles
“We’ll take our oil,” a clearly livid Horgan said afterwards.
“We have taken a lot of that in the last couple of weeks.
[adrotate group=”43″]“It won’t turn by just talking about it.
They’re a decent side, but at the same time they’re a non-League side and they shouldn’t turn us over here.
“They did. We have taken a long look at ourselves and now we have to do it again and try to turn this around. That will be easier said than done.”
Horgan had watched Crumlin defeat Letterkenny Rovers 5-0 in last weekend’s Intermediate Cup final and knew well the capabilities of the Dubliners.
But his team, who had been beaten 7-0 by Dundalk and 4-0 by St Patrick’s Athletic in their previous two outings, would have been expected to put up a better showing.
“Crumlin are the best intermediate side in the country, but at the same time they are an intermediate side,” Horgan said.
“We are supposed to be the League side, but it would have been difficult to tell that out there today. We didn’t score against them at home and we conceded from a corner kick. It was always going to be tight, I felt, but we just weren’t good enough.
[adrotate group=”50″]“We had some players who didn’t step up to the mark. It’s hard to call it.
“Last Tuesday week, we got a great result in the Brandywell, but in the last 10 or 11 days it’s turned on its head. We need to turn that again to collect the points we need in the League.”
Horgan made three changes to his starting XI, resisting the temptation to give some of the lesser-tried members of his squad a go.
[adrotate group=”67″]Moorehouse scored the winner and Barry Molloy’s 64th minute sending off completed a wretched night at the office for the Donegal side.
Horgan added: “We were going to lack in confidence having suffered two heavy defeats. That was going to take a toll to some degree.
“In the first half, we got the ball down, got it wide, but our decision making was very poor and the lack of confidence kicked in when we went a goal down.
“We need to dig our way out of this. We will do all we can to try and sort it.”
[adrotate group=”46″] Tags: