OLLIE HORGAN has branded as ‘farcical’ the fact that his Finn Harps side has to play six games in the space of 19 days.
The hectic schedule began with Monday’s 2-0 defeat to League champions Dundalk at Oriel Park, a game that was rescheduled because of Dundalk’s European engagements.
Harps have three home games in the next week – against Longford Town, Cork City and St Patrick’s Athletic – before they take on Sligo Rovers at The Showgrouns on September 27th, a game that was abandoned on Saturday-week last because of heavy rainfall.
The away game against Galway United, to be played on October 1, completes the busy spell.
“The difficulty that we have is that we have six games in 19 days, which is farcical. It wasn’t out fault for any of the extra games,” Horgan said.
Part-time Harps have ran into trouble with players struggling to get time off from work for games.
Ciaran Gallagher had to sit out the away game in Dundalk earlier in the season, while Adam Hanlon couldn’t get time off for Monday’s fixture in Dundalk.
Horgan said: “We are part time and lads just can’t get off work. We have a game next Monday and we’re struggling to get lads off.
“It’s not whinging because we lost – if we had every one of them in Dundalk we’d still find it difficult to get anything.”
Horgan only found out about the possibility of Monday’s game against Dundalk the previous weekend when asked about the fixture in an interview following the abandonment of the Sligo Rovers match,
The Harps manager said: “We ran into problems with players today because of availability. We found out about this game eight days ago. We didn’t know for certain until after Dundalk played in Belfield on Friday.
[adrotate group=”37″]“These lads are on a schedule to work and they make their living from that, not from playing with us.
“There should be some sort of communication or a timescale.”
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