McConnell says Finn Harps reneged on agreement over 'our player'

Stephen McConnell has expressed his disappointment at Finn Harps for playing Joel Bradley Walsh in a friendly when he claims there was an agreement the player would not.

The Letterkenny Rovers manager was speaking following his side’s 3-1 loss against Mervue United at Leckview Park in the last 32 of the FAI Cup, a game in which he had planned to play Bradley Walsh.

However, McConnell said the player arrived injured having lined out as a trialist for the 45 minutes for Finn Harps in their 2-0 pre-season win at Dergview on Friday night.

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“I’m not making excuses but I am very disappointed with our local League of Ireland team,” McConnell said. “They brought one of our players in on a trial recently and I asked them could we use them for this game and not to play in a friendly for them last night and the manager and the player agreed. Then, he played last night and has an ankle there like a balloon. He was supposed to be available to play [for us] and I’m very disappointed with them. They haven't offered him anything. He’s still on trial. He’s still our player but had been doing a bit of training with them.”

Rovers began brightly against Mervue and BJ Banda slammed home an opening goal just three minutes in. However, they ended up on the wrong side of the scoreline following a first-half brace from Aaron Neary before Gary Molloy’s third in the second half. The game was up for the Leckview Park side when Peter Healy saved a penalty late on from Banda.

"We were 1-0 up after three minutes,” McConnell added. “We probably should’ve kept going for them, but we didn’t. For 15 minutes they kept coming at us and at us. It could’ve been 4-4 at half-time. We didn’t test them enough and the better team won. They wanted it more than us. It’s not like us but that’s football. If the penalty had gone in, it might’ve been a different game but it didn’t.

"We were getting enough balls into the box but we didn’t get on the end of them. They were going through legs, hitting men, getting cleared. They were well coached and were well set up.

"I’d be lying if I didn’t say this was one of the goals we spoke about at the start of the season. We went down to Fahy’s Field last year  [to win 3-2] and look, it was daylight robbery. They might’ve thought ‘we owe these boys’ and we’ve just got to take it.’ As I said, we’ve no complaints over the result tonight.”