The Democrat Sports Diaries: Are Harps out of tune?

The Democrat Sport Diaries is put together by our sportswriters Peter Campbell, Chris McNulty and Alan Foley, where they will be discussing the week’s talking points ...

Finn Harps sit down to review their year this weekend at their AGM and they will reflect on a great year for the club that ended with full-houses and great games at the Ballybofey venue.

The season has to be regarded as a very successful one, despite the difficulties that the club face, not just geographically, but also facing teams that are mostly made up of full-time players.

The last day of the season in Finn Park was cause for celebration with five goals scored and the feel-good factor felt among the supporters. There was something there to build on.

But have the hierarchy in the club missed a beat in the weeks since then? What is Ollie Horgan's position? Has he been given a free rein to go after players to get ready for the 2022 season? That is not clear.

The feeling among supporters is that Horgan along with Paul Hegarty have done miraculous work and should be given 100% backing.

There is always change around the playing panel of Finn Harps but what has happened since the end of season is not helpful with many players finding clubs elsewhere. Then the news this week that Mark Coyle is joining Shelbourne is a major blow.

Fair play to Mark, he has had a wonderful season and was rightly named Player of the Year. He is wished well and will be a major asset to Damien Duff's Shelbourne. But I just wonder if things were right in Finn Park, where he is so popular with the fans, would he have moved?

Time has been lost by the Finn Harps hierachy in not making their plans for Ollie Horgan and the club clearer. It has proved a very difficult task for Horgan over the past few years scaping and scrounging to get a panel together.

I have no doubt that he has the desire to keep going. It's time to give him full support. PC

Is Training Centre fit for championship games?

With the weather taking its toll on club pitches in recent weeks, the GAA's Training Centre in Convoy has been used extensively, especially for recent U-21 championship games in football and hurling.

The main pitch at the Training Centre is not available at present, being reserved for county training when it gets up and running this week. There is one issue with using the other pitches that needs to be addressed. Supporters are inside the boundary fence and the possibility of an incident during games, which could lead to spectators getting involved, is like an accident waiting to happen.

That is the one huge improvement in the playing of games at club venues. Nearly all of them are surrounded by perimeter fences which separate the players from the supporters. It might not stop those supporters venting their praise or anger in equal measure, but it does give a big degree of safety.

There aren't many games left to be played this year, but if those pitches at the Training Centre are to be used for competitive championship games in the future, the need to have spectators outside the fence is something that should be taken on board. PC

No musical chairs

The Donegal GAA Convention takes place on Monday night and will again be held as a virtual event. Just one of the positions on the executive - assistant secretary - will be contested.

In a further nod to Donegal GAA being big business, a new jersey was launched on Monday sporting four sponsors. Main sponsor CIRCET and rear-of-jersey sponsor Abbey Hotel are now joined by Pod-Trak and Global Hydrate on the sleeves.

Donegal GAA’s turnover went north of €1million in recent years and the work involved at County Board level has long since passed the day of the ‘ordinary’ volunteer.

It might not necessarily be a ‘bad’ thing, but the lack of contested positions and an absence of willing volunteers putting their hands up and rolling their sleeves up is something many administrators in a range of clubs across the sporting spectrum could identify with. CMcN

When no news isn’t good news

A few weeks ago, I highlighted the issue of soccer clubs in Donegal failing in their duties to submit proper (or, in some instances, any) match reports from their home games for the local media. Last weekend, 21 games were played across the five divisions of the Donegal Junior League.

Sadly, ‘no report submitted’ was written beneath six games when the weekly documents were sent out by the League PRO. That’s almost 30 per cent of the games that were without mention. People within soccer often wonder about the coverage afforded to the game. Sometimes, the answer lies within … CMcN

Flying the flag

The school gates may now be closed but Storm Barra battering the country didn’t prevent the Downings footballers putting in a training session on Tuesday night ahead of their Ulster JFC semi-final, which is against Monaghan’s Sean McDermotts in Ederney on Saturday afternoon. For years, Donegal clubs didn’t take the provincial competition seriously, bar a couple of exceptions, with things only really turning in the last decade or so.

St Eunan’s and Cloughaneely were both unfortunate to lose out to respective Derry opposition in Watty Grahams Glen and Brian Ógs Steelstown in their Ulster openers, and the hurlers from the Letterkenny club left themselves too much to do when they faced Craobh Rua of Armagh. So, it’s left to Downings, who will fly the flag for the county and wouldn’t a provincial final be some reward to the panel who this week have brought the ‘long winter nights training’ to another level. AF