Ollie Horgan - "I don’t know why I was sent to the stand"

Finn Harps have been struggling as of late in the League of Ireland Premier Division and Friday night’s 2-1 loss away to Galway United will add to manager Ollie Horgan’s woes as his side have now lost six games in a row in all competitions.

There was a small positive in that Barry Molloy’s first half goal for Harps was their first since their win against Derry City over a month ago but that was of no comfort to Horgan.

“The statistics and stuff do not bother me, all that mattered tonight was whether we could get a point or three points out of it but we didn’t get either. I would have been very happy if we continued the goal scoring drought tonight and drew nil all,” said the Galway native.

The Harps manager was left baffled by the decision from the officials to send him off in the final ten minutes of the game. Horgan had only returned from suspension for tonight’s game.

“I actually don’t know why I was sent to the stand, I did question the penalty but I don’t know why I just hope that I wasn’t pre-judged with adverse publicity that might have been out there. There was no foul or abusive language of any sort I just hope there isn’t a pre-judging of people but that’s me I’ll wait to see what sort of report they put in.”

While Horgan did take issue with some of the decisions, made by referee Ray Matthews, he admits Galway were the better side.

“I’m disappointed with the decisions I’d like to see the penalty again but I didn’t feel David Cawley was nicked, I don’t feel it was a free kick leading up to it. Look, is that me complaining? The better team won, to put it that way so I don’t think I’m using that as an excuse.

“We’d obviously be curtailed with the amount of players we have and we’re paying a price for that but saying that that was no reflection on the game tonight. We ran out of legs to a certain extent and maybe we ran out of quality on the counter attack where we turned them over a number of times and just couldn’t get that little final touch to try and get past the likes of Lee Grace and Stephen Folan,” he explained.

The Donegal side’s problems on the field have been exacerbated by an injury crisis which, according to Horgan, appears to have no sign of abating.

“Unfortunately Paddy McCourt is carrying a knock for a long time and unfortunately he’s damaged himself there. He’s played in the last couple of weeks because we’re down so many numbers, he’s played through injury and unfortunately it caught up with him tonight.

“Barry Molloy the same he’s patched himself up from Friday to Friday to try and see us through this and unfortunately he’s pulled up as well so it gets harder but that’s the nature of the league, it’s great to be in it and we’ll dust ourselves down and go again on Monday night.”

Ollie Horgan’s men host St. Patrick’s Athletic on Monday 22 May, kick off is at 8pm.