Audio: Tony McNamee says Finn Harps are meeting their survival aims

WHEN FINN HARPS sat down in pre-season to plot their course for their return back to the Premier Division, they had a target in mind.

Survival in the top flight was, and is their sole focus.

At the outset of the campaign, they had an aim of one point a game, a goal that would see them end the year on 33 points – a total that would be enough to keep them up.

Three games remain in the first third of the season and Harps are slightly ahead of their target, having claimed ten points from the first eight games.

Harps have a gap of six points to Bray Wanderers and Sligo Rovers, while Longford Town and Wexford Youths are also beneath Ollie Horgan’s men.

“If you’d said that at the start of the season, that we’d be six ahead of a few teams, we’d have been delighted,” says Tony McNamee.

Harps battled to a 1-0 win over Bray Wanderers on Friday night to claim a third win of the season. Narrow home wins against Derry City (2-1) and Longford (1-0) preceded Friday’s win, another night when Harps showed that they haven’t just come up for the scenery.

It came after defeats to Galway and St Patrick’s Athletic in games from which Harps felt they’d been hard done by.

McNamee says: “For us, it (the Bray game) was the worst game we played all season, but it’s a results business and we got the three points. We played well against St Pat’s on Monday night, but we felt we didn’t get the right result.

“It’s all about the results.

“The chances we created against St Pat’s, we mightn’t have created in three or four games, but we just couldn’t put the ball in the net.

“Against Bray, we might have had three or four chances and thankfully Dave took his. Defensively, we gave them a few chances. They had a few from corners and we weren’t as sound as we normally are.

“We didn’t create much going forward, but if we’d been given a 1-0 win over Bray at the start we’d have taken it with open arms. Every point we get is bringing us closer to avoiding relegation.”

Harps are without the suspended Damien McNulty for tonight’s EA Sports Cup second round game against Galway United at Eamonn Deacy Park before they face back-to-back away games against Cork City and Wexford Youths.

The final game of the first third of the campaign sees Harps host Bohemians at Finn Park.

Nine of Harps’ ten points have been collected in Ballybofey – and McNamee says the challenge ahead in no way fazes the Harps squad.

The Ramelton man says: “We’re up for the battle. No team will come to Finn Park and get an easy ride. No team has played us off the pitch.

“We gave away sloppy goals against Dundalk, but we’ve been in the other games until the 90^th minute.

“It is a step up, but a lot of players have proved now that they were playing in a League that didn’t suit them. The First Division is so hard because it’s all physical and the traveling is a lot worse than it is in the Premier.”

Listen to the full interview below …

https://soundcloud.com/donegalsporthub-club-notes/tony-mcnamee-on-finn-harps-start-to-2016-season