Webster: 'We need to stop the silly defending and put the ball in the net'

Dave Webster admitted Finn Harps’ 2-0 loss to St Patrick’s Athletic left a sense of frustration.

Ollie Horgan’s side had the better of the bulk of the contest and the visitors’ goalkeeper Joseph Anang was certainly the busier of the two on show. However a messy goal from Wolves loanee Jack Scott and then an own goal from Mark Anthony McGinley gave the Inchicore team the points.

St Patrick's Athletic come good late on to see off Finn Harps

“It’s frustrating,” Webster, the Harps captain who was paired up against his cousin Eoin Doyle, said afterwards. “It’s been the story of the season so far where we don’t put the ball in the net. If we’d scored first, it would have changed the game. We were on top. Most the first half, I thought we were excellent. We battled well. Created a couple of chances and we snuffed them out. They didn’t have too much.

“We haven’t started a second half well since the season started. We came out well, though, and were bang at it. They were sloppy goals we conceded. The first goal might’ve taken the wind out of us but we were still in it. The second one left too much of a mountain to climb.”

The result means that Harps have two points from their opening four fixtures of the campaign, which is eight less than at this stage of last season when Webster’s injury time goal sealed a 2-1 win over Waterford on matchday four.

Harps have a host of new players and their commitment level certainly wasn’t something that could’ve been questioned, as Webster noted.

“We’re only four games in and it’s going to be a long season. This time last year we were top of the league and people were chatting about Europe,” he added. “Look there’s a long way to go and we’re putting in good performances. We need to stop the silly defending and put the ball in the net. That’s not a criticism of our attacking players. We’ve had tonnes of set pieces there.

“We’re enjoying our football and we know it takes time to gel. There’s new lads who are new to the country - never mind to Finn Harps. They’ve never been to Ireland, some of them. They’ve been brilliant with great attitudes. We just need to score first to give ourselves a chance to win games. We need to be more ruthless. We’ve a derby to go straight into and Sligo are flying but we’ll be ready to go come Monday.”