Ollie Horgan said that all credit should go to Longford for beating his Finn Harps side and admitted that they deserved to win.
Harps showed a strong second-half performance and even managed to bring matters back level after 56 minutes.
Unfortunately for the home side, just a minute separated their equaliser and Longford’s third goal. Horgan said that the game was just too open to suit his side: “No, it was certainly an entertaining game, we conceded four goals and we haven’t conceded that I think since we played Dundalk a few years back.
“It was too open for our liking and we didn’t start until half-time, but credit to Longford.”
Harps now face Galway in what will be another difficult contest for Ollie and his team.
“We need to lick our wounds and go to Galway on Friday and try to get something out of that which will be more difficult again.”
Harps played a much more attacking brand of football in the second-half and created a lot of goal scoring opportunities.
The performance was certainly better than what was a disappointing first-half of action.
“We did get back into the game, we worked so hard but in hindsight had you kept men fresh for Friday and lost the game 2-0 it might have been better.
“Second half I thought we were very good, first half no. We didn’t start playing until we were two goals down.
“At this standard that’s too late, I felt at 2-2 had we kept that score for a few minutes we might have gone on to win it but credit to Longford.”
Horgan admitted that his side were very lucky in the reverse fixture this year after Sam Todd scored a last minute winner.
“We got away with murder down in Longford, they know that and we know that. While they deserved to win they played some very good football to their credit.”
At half-time Horgan and some of his players remonstrated with the referee about a penalty decision which wasn’t given. The Harps boss said that he felt that it was a clear penalty but stated that he wouldn’t use it as the reason for his side losing.
“There was a penalty and to be fair to Chris Mulhall of Longford who came off the bench and was involved in a lot of the incidents even he said you could hear the slap for that penalty.
“Would it have meant we would have gotten a result if we scored it, no I’m not saying that at all, but it was a poor decision, I felt the referee got that wrong,” Horgan concluded.
