Treaty United suffer narrow defeat to Finn Harps on emotional night in Ballybofey

TREATY United suffered a frustrating 1-0 defeat to Finn Harps in the SSE Airtricity League First Division at an emotional Finn Park, Ballybofey on Friday night.

Harps, led by captain Tony McNamee and visitors Treaty, skippered by Lee Devitt, both laid wreaths in the middle of the pitch prior to kick-off in memory of legendary League of Ireland soccer figure Ollie Horgan who had strong Limerick connections and who sadly passed away on Thursday.

The former Finn Harps manager and Galway United coach passed away aged 57, following a brief illness.

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Ollie Horgan's late mother, Bernadette, nee Kelly, was a native of Thomondgate in Limerick.

Fifth-placed Treaty United saw their advantage over Harps in the promotion play-off race cut to a just a single point following Friday night's defeat in Donegal.

Hans Mpongo’s 26th-minute strike was enough to push Kevin McHugh’s Finn Harps side over the line on an emotional evening.

Treaty United had been looking to bounce back from their 7-0 thumping at the hands of Dundalk at the Markets Field just a week earlier.

Harps were in front at the break thanks to Mpongo’s breakthrough and while Treaty threatened in both halves and in nine nail-biting minutes of added time, the home side hung on.

The home side opened brightly and a Kieran Cooney cross on the left-hand side, that flashed across the visitors’ goalmouth, was an early signal of intent.

Treaty had the first effort on target on 11 minutes but Robbie Lynch’s header from a Lee Devitt corner was straight at Lorenzo Piaia.

The breakthrough for Harps arrived when Mpongo was put in over the top by Idir Zerrouk and, doing well to initially take control of that delivery over the shoulder, he managed to steer past Matthew Boylan and into the net.

On 36 minutes, the hosts almost bagged a second but Max Hutchison just couldn’t get an outstretched boot onto Mpongo’s inviting cross.

Headed into added time at the end of the first period and Tommy Barrett's Treaty Utd side were desperately unlucky not to square it.

Ex-Harps man Patrick Ferry got in behind the home rearguard and after Piaia brilliantly denied him, Devitt blazed the rebound high and over the crossbar.

Visitors Treaty were livelist immediately after the restart with Evan O’Connor thwarted by Piaia from point blank range after Harps had failed to deal with the initial corner.

Colin Conroy then tried his luck with a low drive from outside the area but Piaia again did so well to get down to his right and smother.

Entering the last half hour, a bizarre incident where Thomas Barrett seemed to get in the way of McNamee taking a throw-in, resulted in a straight red card for the Treaty boss.

Headed into the final ten minutes and Piaia, who’d already been impressive up until that stage, produced his best save of the evening when he somehow got a hand to substitute Joseph Hanson’s close-range, angled drive.

Harps, though managed to see it through as Treaty’s disappointing league run continued.

Next up for Treaty United is a crucial home fixture against UCD at the Markets Field on Friday next, 7.45pm.

FINN HARPS: L Piaia; M Place, C Tourish, J Bradley Walsh, K Cooney; I Zerrouk (Josh Cullen, 77), M Hutchison, O Brogan, T McNamee; G Lomboto (G McAteer, 70); H Mpongo (Aaron McLaughlin, 85).

TREATY UNITED: M Boylan; E O’Connor, R Lynch, R Boevi, B Lynch; C Conroy, C Wilson (M Murphy, 74), B Lee (J Hanson, 74), F Doherty (M Byrne, 60); L Devitt (Darren Nwankwo, 90) P Ferry.

REFEREE: Ryan Maher.