Finn Harps got their long awaited first win of the season in a north-west Derby EA SPORTS Cup match against Sligo Rovers after extra time. The game didn’t spark into life until after the 85th minute, Mark Coyle scored a superb goal to give Finn Harp
Finn Harps got their long awaited first win of the season in a north-west Derby EA SPORTS Cup match against Sligo Rovers after extra time. The game didn’t spark into life until after the 85th minute, Mark Coyle scored a superb goal to give Finn Harps the lead only for Dante Leverock to equalise for the visiting side less than 90 seconds later. Debutant Stephen Doherty scored the winner five minutes into the first half of extra time as Harps progressed to the quarter finals of the EA Sports Cup. Finn Harps assistant manager Paul Hegarty says the win is long overdue and he felt that over the course of the match, the win was deserved. “I was gonna say over the 90 minutes but over the 120 minutes I felt we were the better side, yes it was disappointing to lose that goal after us just scoring a wonder strike but you’ve got to give them credit,” he said. “They’ve been through a lot already this season and they just keep bouncing back, at the minute you would be worried if people's heads were down and they weren’t driving but those boys, you can see they are all driving forward in the one direction,” he added. Finn Harps were on a run of six consecutive defeats going into the game, a run that had some fans fearing that morale might be low but Hegarty put those worries at ease. “I don’t think there is any major problem there with morale, I think maybe it is sometimes you can feel sorry for yourself because you might not get a rub of the green in certain matches and that can be a wee bit negative but I don’t think any of that has crept into that changing room,” he pointed out. Stephen Doherty made his debut for Finn Harps tonight as did Michael Gallagher, and Hegarty noted that their spot, along with others was well earned. “All those boys that were involved there tonight, they have been training with the first team since probably the latter part of last season with a mind of trying to get them up to speed,” he said. “I thought Stephen(Doherty) was excellent and Michael (Gallagher) kept driving forward, bundles of energy and those boys have a future in senior football. “How many games are they going to play this season? I don’t know but if they keep performing and training like that, they will get more opportunities,” he added.
