'Effort can only take you so far': Darren Murphy

Finn Harps assistant manager Darren Murphy lamented squandered chances on a night that saw the Donegal side drop to second-from-bottom in the First Division.

Treaty United climbed above Harps when leaving Finn Park with a win as Dean George bagged the only goal of a glum night in Ballybofey.

On the back of a heavy 4-1 defeat in Athlone on Monday night, the loss concluded a difficult week for Harps.

It wasn’t as if Harps didn’t have opportunities on the night, but Treaty defended stoutly for the most part, although the Limerick side needed goal-line interventions from Mark Walsh to deny Caoimhin Porter and Jordan Tallon to thwart Scott Wara.

Finn Harps fall to ninth after home defeat by Treaty United

Dean George scored the only goal of the game as Treaty United ended a sequence of four successive losses to leapfrog Finn Harps

“Some of the chances we missed there, it’s hard for me to fathom how you miss those,” Murphy, who deputised for manager Dave Rogers in conducting the post match media duties, said.

“That’s the big disappointment for me. It’s the first night since I came here that I am hugely disappointed that we have left a game behind.

“I’m old school. People talk about tactics, formations and players, but it’s 11v11 and I’m a great believer in that there are two penalty boxes and how you defend one and attack the other will determine how a game pans out. We didn’t defend our own 18-yard box well enough and when we attacked Treaty’s 18-yard box we didn’t take our chances.

“I told the players at half-time that I felt a mistake was going to win the game. I thought the first goal would be hugely important. Treaty got that goal and were able to hold onto it.”

Murphy’s point about the penalty boxes is illustrated on the table with only Kerry scoring fewer goals than harps’ 30 and the newcomers are the only side who have conceded more than the 57 shipped by Harps.

Moments after George opened the scoring, Sean O’Donnell had a big chance to draw Harps level, but the teenager saw Corey Chambers save.

Porter and Wara were halted by clearances on the line and Murphy cut to the chase in assessing the 90 minutes.

“Effort can only take you so far,” he said. “You need to have a bit of quality in the final third and unfortunately we’re lacking that at the moment.

“We work on it in training four times a week. We do finishing drills at every training session. It’s not a confidence issue. When they get themselves into that area, they don’t take time to assess the situation.

“This football club has been blessed down the years to have many a centre forward who was blessed in those positions. Kevin McHugh, who is one of those centre forwards, works with our forward players. If those players can’t learn from someone like Kevin McHugh, I don’t really know who else they can learn from.”

George netted in the second minute of the second half and it would prove enough to send Tommy Barrett’s side home with a victory.

Murphy said: “I spoke to Rory (Kelly) in there and I said to him: ‘How many shots did you save? What did you do?’ The one thing he had, there was a lapse of concentration. It was a poor goal for us, collectively, to concede. It’s something that we have done a lot of this season, give away poor goals. We are getting punished for mistakes.

“On the other hand, sometimes you can be overly critical of the goals you concede, but we have to start looking at the chances we’re missing.”