View From Behind The Nets - September 2003
by Rodney Dullaghan

The Time Is Now!

Beating Bray Wanderers here at home last month should have marked the start of a relentless Harps’ assault on lifting the First Division title. Not only did the players put four points between us and Bray that night, but they did it with style, passion and maybe most important of all, pride in the jersey.

We were sitting top of the table and things were looking good. Our squad was going to be significantly strengthened with the arrival of Gavin Cullen and the return of Damien Whitehead from injury.

A month on and we haven’t won a game since. A last minute penalty cost us two points in Galway, lack of fight and spirit cost us three points at home to Sligo and another injury time goal cost us two more points in Limerick of all places. We have slipped to fourth in the table and even more unbelievably are five points behind Dublin City who we play tonight (Friday 5th Sept).

Off the field, Gavin Cullen had a highly publicised fall-out with Omagh boss Roy McCreadie over the controversial manager allegedly filling in the date on a blank registration form. This meant that Gavin, instead of being a free agent on the 10th August was registered with Town until 2006 and couldn’t come back to finish the season with us as everyone had anticipated. To compound the frustration of the saga, some of the valuable points that have been dropped during the course of this last month, have been blamed on goalkeeping errors.

The club signed ex-Derry goalkeeper, 20 year old Gary Ramsey just before the transfer deadline last weekend so it will give Speakie another option in nets. Damien Whitehead, whose ankle injury had been slower to respond to treatment than was first thought, played 80 minutes in a reserve game against Derry City during the week and marked his return with a goal. The appearance of these two lads in the panel could prove to be very important to our title aspirations. We all know what Damien is capable of, and if Ramsey can help rebuild the confidence in what was a watertight defence then we shouldn’t be too far away, but its in our own hands.

The players need to stand and be counted going into the final stage of the season. They are well capable of putting away any of the opposition in this division and need to find the passion and hunger that had us sitting on top of the league sooner rather than later before our chance has gone - the last thing anyone wants is more heartache in the playoffs. Lets hope that they put the last soul-sapping month behind them and concentrate on playing and working the way they were for the first part of the season.

That should start tonight and show these Dublin pretenders to our crown exactly what we are capable of and get back the magic that everyone knows we possess. Lets go at them Harps!