Finn Harps manager Ollie Horgan is not prepared to throw in the towel on his side’s Premier Division survival hopes.
With four games to go and with Harps second-from-bottom on goal difference, Horgan knows they have to upset the odds to avoid dropping to the First Division again.
Home defeats to Drogheda United, Galway United and, most recently, Sligo Rovers – three of their dropzone rivals – throughout the season have become costly.
In order for them not to have been fatal, Harps have to pull off something of a Great Escape with games against Dundalk, Derry, Drogheda and Bohemains to come.
“We just hope that we can stay in the dogfight for the last game of the season,” Horgan said after Friday’s 4-1 loss to Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght.
“We need to get three results, wins or draws, which will be a massive task. We aren’t chucking the Dundalk game out the window, but we probably need one or two other results to go our way.
“We have Dundalk next which is the worst nightmare. It might get worse before it gets better, but please God it will get better and we’ll still have something to fight for on the last day.”
A mixture of illness and injury prevented Ciaran Coll, Sean Houston and Ethan Boyle from playing in Tallaght and a week without a game before Saturday-week’s clash with Dundalk might just be what the doctor ordered.
Horgan said: “It was a difficult week for us with the injuries we picked up. It was a bridge too far.
“The Dundalk game will be a huge task. They have won nine out of ten and are the form team. That game will be hugely difficult and it will probably be the remaining three games that will decide whether or not we stay in this Division.
“We need everybody back. Please God we can get men patched up. If we have a full panel, we will make a serious fight of it.”