OLLIE HORGAN was philosophical as his Finn Harps side were denied what appeared to be a winning goal against Waterford United by an assistant referee’s flag.
Damien McNulty broke the tension on a nervous night at Finn Park with the apparent deadlock breaker on 73 minutes, only to see his header ruled out for offside. It would instead finish scoreless.
Perhaps a point of irritation for Horgan, the Harps manager, was the fact McNulty seemed not to be offside when he headed past Robert Birdsall in the Waterford goal. But it was not to be.
“You need a lot to go your way,” Horgan said afterwards. “You need to be playing well; you need referees’ decisions to go your way and the linesman pulled – whatever about Damien being offside he came from behind Keith Cowan – so I don’t know how Damien was offside. But the linesman said, in his own words, that he was a mile offside.
“You take your oil. I thought it was a perfectly legitimate goal but it’s done and dusted. You get some decisions and they even out before the end of the season. It was a great header, one of the few set pieces that went well for us. I felt we did enough to win it. We had a lot of other chances and half-chances we didn’t take. We’ll move on and won’t be dwelling on that disallowed goal.”
Harps took some time to lodge their footprint into the game. After a mediocre opening quarter-hour, they did improve but again had bother in finding the net.
“The first 15 were poor,” Horgan added. “Waterford got to the pace of the game quicker – they’re a decent side. They play on the counter-attack. It could’ve been worse. We should’ve won the game but they hit the post. Last year we’d have lost that game 1-0 and would’ve been feeling sorry for ourselves.
“After the first 15 minutes we improved and went for it but left ourselves very open on the counter-attack. We had to go to win it – it wasn’t for the lack of trying. There’s not much more we could’ve done. Of course we could’ve scored and taken the half-chances. That’s a problem we’ve had but we will continue to work on it. I can’ fault the effort, bar the first 15 minutes.
“Our workrate were excellent. Waterford might do damage to teams. There’s a lot of new players. They want to play and are decent footballers. I think they’ll be a handful and maybe they’ll do us a favour before the end of the season.
“Maybe it’s not that bad a result before the season finishes. At the moment it’s disappointing, yes, but it might be more disappointing when we look at the footage and see that Damien wasn’t offside. I’m not going down the line of talking about referees. You move on.”
On-loan Derry City striker Nathan Boyle added some impetus when introduced for Michael Funston for the final 18 minutes and some queried why his role was that of cameo. Horgan, though, explained his reluctance to start Boyle.
“Nathan wasn’t felling well,” Horgan said. “He had an infection since Thursday so did well to play a part in the game. I’ve to give him huge credit. He couldn’t start with the energy levels he had. But he did well for 20 minutes.”
Harps now have four matches to play in the SSE Airtricity League Division One, starting at St Colman’s Park – the home of Cobh Ramblers – this day fortnight. Harps are in second place right now and trail Wexford Youths by four points having played once more. Fourth-placed Shelbourne have the same about of fixtures played as Harps and are four points behind.
UCD, in third, also have a game in hand on the Ballybofey side and are just two points behind. However, UCD and Wexford meet on the next two Friday nights, so the table will be much clearer by the time Harps make their way to Cork. Then, Horgan’s team welcome both UCD and Wexford to the Twin Towns, either side of a visit to Athlone Town.
“We’ve a lot of knocks in there and a lot of suspensions for Cobh,” Horgan added. “Raymond Foy picked up a booking at that puts him out along with Keith Cowan and Tommy McMonagle. So maybe we need the two weeks. We’ve a lot of sore bodies as a lot of people  put themselves on the line there. I know it wasn’t pretty at times and I know we didn’t win the game but it certainly wasn’t short of effort.
“They’re a bit sorry for themselves in there so maybe the two weeks isn’t a bad thing. We’ve a lot of work to do to change the team around with the people who are out with suspensions.
“We have to look after ourselves and if we don’t go and win the league then we have to make sure we get third place. That’s not over and done with yet with Shelbourne breathing down our neck. That’s football, full of highs and lows. This is a low but it could’ve been lower.”
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