Hegarty pleased with ‘an honest days work'

May 12, 2007

By Chris McNulty

Aside from the two pivotal penalty decisions that were to deny his side victory against the league leaders on Friday night last, Finn Harps boss Paul Hegarty was again pleased with the performance his charges turned in.

After a difficult start to the campaign, Harps appear to have turned a corner and are now unbeaten in four going into Saturday night's game with Shelbourne.

On Friday's clash with Dundalk, Hegarty felt that no more could have been asked of his players: “I have the utmost respect for the attitude of the players and the shift that they put in there tonight. After playing on Monday night against Sligo and working their socks off and getting a very positive result and after that big win last Friday, I felt we deserved to win the three games this week. It was through no fault of the players that we didn't.” said the Harps manager.

“In saying that we have only one point to show from it and that is very unsatisfactory, Some of the approach play tonight was excellent, but maybe the final ball could have opened them up a wee bit more. That's probably nit-picking though because I can't fault the players,” he noted.

“I thought the first half was very even. I said to the players at half-time that, the way we were playing, the best we could have hoped for was a draw and we needed to up it. In fairness to them in the second half I thought everyman really put in an honest day's shift and we pushed Dundalk to the very breaches,” commented Hegarty, who looks ahead to Saturday night's contest with Dermot Keely's Shelbourne.

For that game, the Harps chief says that his side will be travelling full of confidence.

“We're positive every week. As I said before, there is only one way we can play and that is to go out an try to win matches. We can't sit back, soak up pressure and hope to hit teams on the break. We just want to go and play and I felt we did that here tonight so we'll go to Shelbourne next week and do the same,” he said.

For Saturday's trip to the capital, Hegarty will have to plan without the services of Tony Shields. The skipper is due to sit out a suspension having accumulated four penalty points.