Gallagher grieves after heavy defeat
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It took Finn Harps manager James Gallagher over an hour to emerge from the dressing room at Turner’s Cross after his side were trounced 5-0 by Cork City last Friday night.
The boss was still incredulous, shocked and very disappointed when talking to ExtraTime after the game.
“It’s hard to know what to say after that. Shocking defending would be a good way to describe it,” Gallagher said. “Up until Cork scored we were doing OK and looked reasonably comfortable but we gave away shocking goals and it’s very hard to sum it up at this stage after been beaten 5-0.
“We probably deserved to be beaten by that much on the basis that we defended so badly.”
While that last statement is perhaps slightly harsh after Harps did enjoy some decent spells of possession, particularly in the opening ten minutes and when the score was 2-0, it was understandable that the manager would be overly critical having endured such a heavy defeat.
A further worry for the Ballybofey outfit is the fact they have failed to score in 385 minutes of competitive football, though Gallagher admitted he is more frustrated with the defensive performance on Leeside.
“It is a surprise but at this stage that’s probably the least of our worries when you see what went on tonight at the back, conceding five,” Gallagher added. “Of course we haven’t been scoring as much as we like, but we had Kevin up there on his own up until tonight and decided to go with two up front against Cork. I thought that if we were a bit cleverer we could have hurt them but it’s very frustrating at both ends of the field.
“Cork punished us for every bit of bad defending, other than that we looked comfortable in midfield at times and actually played some OK stuff, but they still managed to score five.”
One slight positive at the full-time whistle was that the injury picked up by Ciaran Coll wasn’t as bad as first feared. It looked like the defender may have suffered a repeat of his cruciate injury suffered last year, but thankfully the damage is only bad bruising around the joint.
“We were all worried originally because it was his bad knee. I felt it was a bad challenge from the Cork player [Vinny Sullivan], I’ve had three players sent off for nothing near a challenge like that. He has stud marks above his knee, but it looks like he’s OK. It’s just a bad knock and the structure seems to be fine.”
The boss was still incredulous, shocked and very disappointed when talking to ExtraTime after the game.
“It’s hard to know what to say after that. Shocking defending would be a good way to describe it,” Gallagher said. “Up until Cork scored we were doing OK and looked reasonably comfortable but we gave away shocking goals and it’s very hard to sum it up at this stage after been beaten 5-0.
“We probably deserved to be beaten by that much on the basis that we defended so badly.”
While that last statement is perhaps slightly harsh after Harps did enjoy some decent spells of possession, particularly in the opening ten minutes and when the score was 2-0, it was understandable that the manager would be overly critical having endured such a heavy defeat.
A further worry for the Ballybofey outfit is the fact they have failed to score in 385 minutes of competitive football, though Gallagher admitted he is more frustrated with the defensive performance on Leeside.
“It is a surprise but at this stage that’s probably the least of our worries when you see what went on tonight at the back, conceding five,” Gallagher added. “Of course we haven’t been scoring as much as we like, but we had Kevin up there on his own up until tonight and decided to go with two up front against Cork. I thought that if we were a bit cleverer we could have hurt them but it’s very frustrating at both ends of the field.
“Cork punished us for every bit of bad defending, other than that we looked comfortable in midfield at times and actually played some OK stuff, but they still managed to score five.”
One slight positive at the full-time whistle was that the injury picked up by Ciaran Coll wasn’t as bad as first feared. It looked like the defender may have suffered a repeat of his cruciate injury suffered last year, but thankfully the damage is only bad bruising around the joint.
“We were all worried originally because it was his bad knee. I felt it was a bad challenge from the Cork player [Vinny Sullivan], I’ve had three players sent off for nothing near a challenge like that. He has stud marks above his knee, but it looks like he’s OK. It’s just a bad knock and the structure seems to be fine.”
About Alan Smith
Alan Smith works as a sub-editor for the Guardian newspaper in London. Originally from Cork, he freelances for several other newspapers and websites. Follow him on twitter @alansmith90. View Full Profile