THESE ARE THE moments that Ollie Horgan has always relished as a football manager.
During his time at Fanad United, Horgan revelled in the big ties; those when-the-chips-are-down, backs-to-the-wall games with his team as the underdog.
Horgan’s elevation to the Finn Harps hotseat in 2013 was a surprising jump, but the Galwegian – who currently doing his UEFA Pro Licence – has certainly proved his worth this year.
In guiding Harps to the cusp of a return to the Premier Division, Hogan has defied the odds with a threadbare squad, assembled for Irish football’s equivalent of pennies.
Now, though, they face their biggest task of the campaign with a two-legged joust with a Limerick side that has made a Lazarus-like recovery in battling their way off the bottom of the table.
The first leg of the promotion-relegation play-off takes place at the Markets Field this evening (7.45pm) and it is a measure of the meaning, importance and standing of the fixture that Horgan was given the green light to take his troops to Shannonside for an overnight stay.
Harps trained in Ballybofey yesterday morning and headed south in the afternoon.
“If we get out of Limerick and the tie is still alive, brilliant – but that is easier said than done,” the Harps manager said following Friday night’s 2-1 win over UCD at Finn Park.
Picture caption: Gareth Harkin outpaces the UCD defence as he leads a Finn Harps attack during the First Division play-off between the sides at Finn Park. Picture courtesy of Gary Foy, newsandsportfiles
“I’m not trying to put our lads down, but we weren’t good and we got a great results.
“We got out of jail and everyone in there knows that.
“We have got a great result without playing particularly well – but we’d need to improve going to the Markets Field to compete with a serious outfit.
“If we perform like that in Limerick, the tie will be over very early.”
There was something about the way Harps won the game that was to be admired, though.
UCD had control of the game and it had the feeling of one of those all-too familiar nights by the Finn until Nathan Boyle struck gold with a 76th minute equaliser that put Harps back in command of the tie.
Josh Mailey’s sumptuous winner confirmed Harps’ advancement.
“They’re great men and they stuck at it,” Horgan said of his players.
“In other years they might have dropped the heads and let UCD go in for a second. There is something about them; a fair bit of character.
“I’m not too sure how we turned that game around there tonight. There is a fair amount of stubborness with our lads and they lifted themselves at one-nil down, but UCD played all the football.”
With Harps leading 1-0 from the first leg after Ciaran Coll’s heroics in Belfield, Finn Park saw a crowd of over 2,000 make its way through the turnstiles, but it became a nervous night.
“It was one-way traffic for UCD for long periods,” Horgan said of a night that saw his side go a goal down after Jamie Doyle netted on the hour mark.
“The goal was coming for a while. They looked the most likely to score before Jamie Doyle did score. We couldn’t clear the set-pieces, the corner kicks and the throw-ins. It was coming. It wasn’t to say that we didn’t see it coming. We had plenty of warning and we still couldn’t deal with it.
“The saving grace was the time of the goal. We had time to regroup and change our shape. We got a way, doggedly, back into the game.”
Harps were under the cosh during a spell of UCD pressure, but a save by Ciaran Gallagher to deny Ryan Swan ensured the Students didn’t edge ahead.
The key moment arrived when Mailey slipped Boyle through on goal and he applied a neat finish.
“That changed the whole game,” Horgan said.
“Had Conor O’Donnell saved that, it may have been backs-to-the-wall stuff again with them one-nil up. The whole complexion of the game changed with that goal. They had to come out and get at us – and that’s where our second goal came from.”
Limerick seemed doomed by the end of July when they were rooted to the foot of the table, winless and with only six points to their name.
Martin Russell’s side began to turn the corner, even if it did seem as if it was going to be a case of being too little and too late.
Limerick believed in their bounce back ability, though.
Shaun Kelly left Derry City when a return to Limerick became a possibility. He and his partner, Niamh, with their young son, upped sticks and made a big switch.
When Kelly was vacating a house in Letterkenny, the new tenant ventured that Limerick, believing the club’s fate to have been long since sealed, were ambitious in already building a squad to win promotion in 2016.
“We’re planning to stay up – it’ll be hard and we have a load of Cup finals to play, but there’s a good mood about the place,” Kelly responded.
Limerick won for the first time this season on August 1 when they overcame Sligo Rovers 3-2 at home.
Since then, they’ve lost just twice and their great escape took a massive leap on Friday night with another 3-2 win over Sligo, this one at the Showgrounds. Drogheda’s 5-3 loss at Shamrock Rovers has bought Limerick a play-off card – and Horgan doesn’t need reminding of the size of the task facing his squad.
“No-one here was talking about Drogheda or Limerick,” he said.
“I wouldn’t let them – and you can see why with the way that UCD game could have gone either way. The general consensus was that Drogheda were on a run of losing games and we might have able to compete better.
“Limerick are a different story. The Markets Field is a huge pitch and they play football very much like UCD. They’re older and more experienced and they have a forward line that has clicked in the second half of the season.”
With just a couple of days to prepare, Horgan will have had little sleep as he plots the course.
His career has seen him mastermind some memorable nights before.
In 2006, his Fanad United team were 21 points adrift of Kildrum Tigers in the Ulster Senior League.
They had seven games in hand at season’s end and won all seven before defeating Kildrum after extra-time in a League play-off at Ballyare. Horgan’s team had been playing catch-up in League fixtures because of their epic sojourn to the semi-finals of the FAI Intermediate Cup – when Avondale United defeated them 1-0 at Triagh-A-Locha.
Horgan’s Fanad won the League via a play-off again in 2010, this time seeing off Cockhill Celtic.
Now, Horgan is in play-off territory again and the prize on offer is unquantifiable for a club and a team that has been dreaming of a week like this for eight seasons.
It’s just the sort of week in which their manager has thrived in before.
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