OLLIE HORGAN was delighted to see fight and spirit back in his Finn Harps side yesterday in a battling 1-1 draw against Shamrock Rovers.
A daunting trip to Tallaght became even more frightening with Harps heading into the game on the back of three defeats: a 7-0 loss against Dundalk, a 4-0 beating at St Patrick’s Athletic and a 1-0 FAI Cup defeat to non-League Crumlin United.
“It was certainly a point gained, especially with the run of performances going into it,” Horgan told Donegal Sport Hub.
[adrotate group=”43″]“Often when you don’t expect a result, it’s more pleasing then when you get it. There was a little bit of that about it yesterday.
“The fight and the spirit was back, as it was in the three training sessions last week.
“We saw the fight and the hunger that we had for the last two-and-a-half years. It went missing for three games.”
[adrotate group=”50″]Harps had played midweek games against Derry City and St Patrick’s Athletic in the fortnight prior to last week.
Horgan wasn’t too keen on using that as a factor for what could be a vital point against Pat Fenlon’s Hoops.
Horgan said: “Was it as simple as we had eight days to prepare for it? Maybe.
“We hadn’t really trained in three weeks as we had a lot of recovery sessions because of the midweek games.
[adrotate group=”46″]“We had three training sessions to prepare for Shamrock Rovers and had none to prepare for the previous three games. I’m not even going there as an excuse, though, because if those performances happened again and we had no midweek games what could I say?
“Even if we’d lost in Tallaght, the hunger and work rate was there on what was a savage hot day.”
Shaw headed home in the eighth minute for Shamrock Rovers after Harps goalkeeper Ciaran Gallagher conceded a corner. Gallagher kept Rovers at bay and, when the home side had McCabe sent off, for kicking out at the Harps netminder off the ball, the tide turned.
[adrotate group=”70″]Horgan said: “They had a lot of the possession. We sat behind the ball and tried to hit them on the counter attack.
“It worked on the basis that we were still in the game at 1-0. We had something to hold on against run of play.
“It was a poor goal to give away and a poor corner to give away in the first place.
“It was very much like the game against St Pat’s. We gave away poor goal and were pumped. That could have happened again.
“What went our way was the sending off. We were the better side in the last 20 minutes and, for about ten minutes, we actually looked like we could have won it.”
Harps host north-west neighbours Sligo Rovers in Ballybofey on Friday night in what is their final game before the mid-season break.
Horgan said: “This will be tough. They’re on a serious roll. They could have been out the gate by half-time in Sligo, but we dug our way out of it. I think they’re an excellent football side. We’ll do well to get anything out of it.”
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