Shamrock Rovers first up for Finn Harps' three games in eight days

You wait so long for a game, and then three come along at once. Finn Harps, without a match since last Friday week’s welcome victory at Shelbourne, are looking into a hectic run of fixtures which will see them playing three games in Finn Park over the space of eight days.

Two of those games, as Ollie Horgan pointed out this week, are against the top two teams in the league in terms of quality in Shamrock Rovers and Derry City. And sandwiched in between are Drogheda United, a fixture which some Harps fans might consider to be the most important of the three.

The Harps manager pointed out that while the Drogheda match holds major importance, he and his players can’t afford to look any further than tonight’s visit of Rovers.

“Drogheda were hugely impressive against Dundalk and beat them deservedly last Friday week,” he said. “I think the problem with Shamrock Rovers is if you don’t prepare fully for it, you could take a heavy defeat. So we’ve gone and probably put a lot of our eggs into that basket to try and get a performance and see if we can get a result, although it will take a hell of a lot going for us.

“Whatever bit of confidence you might have taken from the Shelbourne win could go out the window if you take your eye off the ball against them.”

Ahead of the international break, Rovers had managed only one win in four games, and they drew their last two, against Dundalk and then last Friday week at home to Sligo Rovers (2-2).

Seven games in and the champions are fourth in the table, three points behind leaders Derry with one more game played.
Horgan, however, doesn’t really buy into the suggestion that Rovers might be slipping off the pace. “The panel they have itself is savage,” he said. “Even in the international window, they could play and field a side which is equally as good as what they’ll probably field.

“They have the biggest panel of high ability players available in the whole league. Derry might argue that they have something similar. But Rovers have players in abundance in every position. They have two players, if not three, for each attacking position that they can choose from, each of serious ability. We went up there back when on the night they won the league and I don’t think we had a shot on target.

“This will be hugely difficult to try and make it competitive and to try and get a bit of confidence out of it to kick on to Drogheda on Monday night.”

Harps, the manager revealed, have trained well since the win at Tolka Park, and while there are injury problems within the squad, he’s hoping some players who are carrying knocks will still feature in the next three games.

“We didn’t go looking for any friendlies (last weekend) on the risk of picking up more injuries because we already had a few,” he said. " We’ve tried to get people back and available again. I’m not sure if this weekend is too soon for some of them, but we’ve three games in the eight days, starting on Friday, so hopefully we’ll have one or two bodies back for the latter part of those games.” Tonight’s game kicks off at 8pm.