OLLIE Horgan cut a picture of frustration after his Finn Harps side went down to Bohemians at Finn Park yesterday.
Booked in the first half, Horgan saw red ten minutes from the end when he was banished to the stand as he contested the awarding of a throw-in to Bohs.
“I think the day of looking for a free or a throw-in are gone,” Horgan said after the 1-0 defeat.
“I don’t think we can shout for anything. There seems to be a new sort of medium that because there is no-one at the ground, you can’t speak at all.
“In fairness to the referee, he didn’t even hear me call for it. The fourth official was very busy. There is a trail beside our dugout. It’s farcical.
“It’s not about me or the officials. The fact that we came out and got nothing out of the game is the big disappointment.”
Grant pounced to break the stalemate, a tidy finish to the bottom corner condemning Harps to a sixth straight League defeat.
Harps battled throughout, but were unable to really trouble Stephen McGuinness, the Bohs goalkeeper.
Horgan said “They won the game in the first half. They could have been two up and out of sight. The longer we stayed in it, we’d get a spell – and we did. We just lacked the final finish.
“I can’t fault the lads for effort. The last two weeks were horrendous with the injured bodies and tired limbs.”
Harps are bottom of the table, two points behind Cork City, who defeated Sligo Rovers on Friday night, with just ten games to go to save their top flight status. Harps’ next outing takes them to Waterford next Sunday.
The Harps boss said: “We need to stay in the fight and not drift away. That’s the key. If we had got a point, it would be another notch up.
“Last year we looked like we would drift away, but we eventually kept intact to the end of it. If we don’t drift away, we have something to fight for.
“At least we have eight days to recover. We need that. To be fair, they found the energy in the second half. We looked leggy in the first half, but they found something from somewhere. We just lacked a bit of quality in the last third.”
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