Cobh Ramblers left to rue missed chances after draw at home to Finn Harps

Cobh Ramblers 1 Longford Town 1 

Cobh Ramblers manager Fran Rockett regrets his side’s missed chances after his team were held to a 1-1 draw by Finn Harps at St Colman’s Park on Friday night.

The Rams went into the game hoping get their second league win of the season and they broke through at the end of the half when Kai O’Neill got in to score his first senior league goal.

Substitute Nathan Lumingo then equalised against the run of play in the 72nd minute, and there was no late drama despite Cobh pushing for a winner.

“Three points definitely dropped – or two points dropped after our dominance in the game,” he said.

“It is always on a knife edge when it is only 1-0, we said it at half-time. I said it was the next goal, we needed to get the next goal but we left them off the hook. We had numerous opportunities and if you don’t get that second goal there’s always a chance that a mistake or something will allow them back into the game.

“Ultimately it is a disappointing dressing room in there but I like to think that performance is after restoring the faith after the Wexford game and the fans will come out in their droves for Friday night.” 

Rockett has only one more regret, and that is a missed free on Brendean Frahill before Finn Harps got the equaliser.

“You know, I'm very, very happy - I just think the clinical nature,” he pondered one more time on the missed chances.

“I think maybe with the freekick as well. There was a definite free kick before on Brendan Frahill there. Even talking to the referee there, he's half agreed with me on it as well, to be fair to him.

“I thought he was very good, the referee, throughout the whole game, other than that. But, yeah, massive opportunity, so that leaves a sour taste in our mouth as well and it needs to be said, because I think that was a massive, that was a head clash more or less and he's down on the ground and the referee allows the game to roll on, so I'm disappointed with that.

“But other than that in our general play, I thought we were fantastic. You can see every area of our game that we've been working on and improving on.

“Some of the performances were outstanding, in terms of to a man. I thought Jason Abbott, you know what, at 31 years of age, he ran the midfield, but in terms of his desire, his application, I thought he was fantastic. What a man, even the boys coming off the bench were fantastic, but yeah, look, we're disappointed. 

"We can see areas that we're improving in, but yeah, we'll move forward now to the Cork City game.” 

COBH: Corey Chambers; Shane Griffin, Gary Buckley, Cian Coleman, Callum Honohan; Jason Abbott, Rhys Gourdie; Kai O’Neill, Mikey Carroll, Rhys Brennan; Wilson Waweru.

Subs: Brendean Frahill for Buckley (66); Brian Lenihan for Honohan (86), Anthony Adenopo for O'Neill (51), Oran Crowe for Carroll (86).

HARPS: Corey Sheridan; Joel Bradley-Walsh, Alex-Mathis Fanle, Conor Tourish, Josh Cullen; Max Hutchison, Steve Perrault Tokam; Idir Yacinne Zerrouk, Bernardo Dos Santos Monteiro, Gavin McAteer, Shaunie Bradley.

Subs: Alex McLaughlin for Zerrouk (61); Nathan Lumingo for Bradley (62), Temiloluwa Ajibola for Monteiro (62), Daniel Ricardo de Lacerda for McAteer (90).

Referee: Mark Houlihan