Former Harps player O'Sullivan comes back to haunt his former club

Yoyo Mahdy of Finn Harps holds off Sligo Rovers' Adam McDonnell. Photos Thomas Gallagher

placeholder image — Yoyo Mahdy of Finn Harps holds off Sligo Rovers' Adam McDonnell. Photos Thomas Gallagher

Ollie Horgan's side were out of sorts for long spells but did have chances to level in the final 15 minutes

Karl O’Sullivan of Sligo Rovers scored the only goal of the game against his old club Finn Harps in the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division.

Finn Harps 0

Sligo Rovers 1

Sligo were comfortable for long spells in a contest that was pretty tepid against Ollie Horgan’s team, who looked out-of-sorts and patched up.

Below par Harps might’ve been but with the match almost petering out, Mark Timlin on 85 minutes missed a great chance to level. The former Derry City frontman, 10 yards from goal only to see a combination of Colm Horgan and Adam McDonnell get in the way, when Filip Mihaljevic had squared.

In the depths of injury, Ed McGinty, the visiting goalkeeper, had to backpedal to smother as Harps belatedly kicked into life and in the 94th minute with Mark Anthony McGinley in the Sligo box, there was a scramble but Sligo survived.

With Eric McWoods and Ryan Rainey having both been dismissed, while captain Dave Webster hobbled off, in Friday’s rather bizarre 2-2 draw at Bohemians, Horgan made five changes. He was forced into another change inside of 20 minutes when Ryan Connolly was forced off with a knock.

Liam Buckley’s Sligo hadn’t won since their last meeting with Harps five weeks beforehand. Aidan Heena grabbed a hat-trick that night at the Showgrounds in a 3-1 success.

Harps had McGinley to thank for keeping their sheet clean early on, staying on his feet to stop David Cawley’s shot. The Harps netminder followed that up with a top-class double-save, firstly to deny Mark Byrne and then the follow-up from Max Max Mata.

Sligo were dominating the chances and went in front on 26 minutes, though as untidy a goal as you could imagine. Cawley was played in by Byrne down the left and although the Rovers captain’s dink over the advancing goalkeeper was on target, it didn’t have the legs, only for Regan Donelon’s clearance to hit a combination of Mata and O’Sullivan, who scored from six inches.

Six minutes later, Harps had another let-off when Shane Blaney - a native of Letterkenny - got around the back from an O’Sullivan corner, only to head into the side-netting.

McGinty was having a trouble-free evening in the sunshine, finally called into action to make a straightforward save from a Donelon free-kick on 33 minutes.

There was little goalmouth action until the final quarter-hour, when Harps finally began to press. Paddy Kirk made a brave block as Ethan Boyle shot and then McGinty and Blaney both got in the way of separate shots from Luke Rudden.

Another substitute, Rovers’ Jordan Hamilton created space for himself with a precise drag back and McGinley had to go at full stretch to tip it wide of the post with 10 to play.

Finn Harps: Mark Anthony McGinley; Ethan Boyle, Erol Alkan, Rob Slevin, Regan Donelon; Bastien Hery, Ryan Connolly (Luke Rudden 19); Barry McNamee, Filip Mihaljevic, Mark Timlin; Yoyo Mahdy (Jesse Devers 70).

Sligo Rovers: Ed McGinty; Paddy Kirk, Shane Blaney, Nando Pijnaker, Colm Horgan; Karl O'Sullivan, Niall Morahan, David Cawley (Greg Bolger 87), Adam McDonnell; Max Mata (Jordan Hamilton 60), Mark Byrne (Will Fitzgerald 76).

Referee: Paul McLaughlin