Ollie Horgan reckons Finn Harps met Derry City at the right time

Horgan felt his battling Harps side should’ve had the experience to see out an historic first ever league victory at the Brandywell but while he frustrated to concede a 95th minute equaliser he had no complaints about the result in the end.

They came so close to victory but Horgan believes they’ve met Derry at just the right time as he expects Devine’s troops to get much better as the season progresses.

“We should have held out, we should’ve seen it out,” said Horgan. “We had enough experience on the pitch but I think Derry, in the second half, were very good and they took risks and deserved their equaliser Well done to them! Had they scored a last-minute winner you would’ve said, ‘yeah, that’s typical’. But they deserved it and in the second half we didn’t play well enough.

“I felt in the first half we were the better side. I thought Karl O’Sullivan’s supposed push on Eoin Toal when he went through to score the second goal which was disallowed - that could’ve been a turning point. But we still should’ve seen the game out. We should’ve had enough experience about us to see it out in the 95th minute,” he stressed.

“It was a little bit of class from Figueira to get past Sam (Todd) on the byline and he pulled back and the Liddle boy took it very well in the near corner. We have no qualms. We would’ve taken a draw earlier today but we move on. There’s no point licking your wounds in this league and no point feeling sorry for yourselves. I thought we deserved a draw and that’s what we got.”

Given his side were at the wrong end of two 4-0 drubbings on their last two league visits, not to mention a 3-0 loss in pre-season, it was a marked improvement by the Donegal side who have recruited well during the close season.”

It’s a huge improvement,” agreed the Harps boss. “We came here last March and we were fresh like we are now. It’s slightly different in the last game of the season where we had a playoff on the Monday. We were playing Drogheda so that was slightly different. It’s still no excuse for getting beat 4-0 but today we’ll take the point and move on.

“I think Derry will kick on and get better so we might have got them at a good time and yet we only got a point out of it.”Harps looked much better equipped to maintain their place in the division this season thanks to some shrewd new signings. Former City skipper, Barry McNamee was the marquee signing as he became the latest to cross the North West divide and despite his lack of pre-season training, Horgan didn’t hesitate to start him at Brandywell. And that risk paid off!

So is Horgan happy with his close season business in the transfer market?

“We will soon find out. They were very much together and worked very hard but we need to do that for 36 games to stay in this division or else, if we drift away like we did last year, we won’t be pegging back if you look at the quality which is there."