Finn Harps captain Ciaran Coll has rarely had as frustrating a start to a season.
Coll, now in his tenth season at Harps, is nursing an ankle injury, but the St Johnston man hasn’t missed a slice of action yet.
Harps’ opening three games of the campaign have had to be shelved.
On the season’s opening night in Drogheda, referee John McLaughlin postponed the game, after the appointed kick-off time, due to bad lighting.
The arrival of Storm Emma to Ireland last week saw the FAI postponed Friday’s entire League fixture list, including Harps’ clash with Longford.
This evening’s EA Sports Cup games, among them a home game for Harps against Mayo League, was also put back.
“It’s nine weeks of pre-season we’ve done,” Coll – pictured by North West News Pix – sighed.
“We’d really have liked a few games in there.
“It’s been frustrating to have games called off when we’ve been preparing hard for them. We’d been looking forward to that for nine weeks.”
Ciaran Coll
Harps were in the dressing room and ready for the off against Drogheda United on Friday-week past when they learned they would board the bus without kicking a ball in anger.
Coll says: “We’d built ourselves up and prepared for the game. It was ten to eight and the lads were ready to go. That was so frustrating.
“If it was a home game, we could have trained or something, but we got nothing out of the trip at all. Boys lost a day off their work and everything. The bus was so quiet on the way home on the bus; just pure frustration.”
Coll was named on the bench at United Park, but was unlikely to have featured.
The left-back picked up an ankle ligament injury in training and says: “I’ve been resting it. Every time I try to train it just swells up.
“I’ve missed a few weeks and I need a few games under my belt. It’s hard to catch up. The boys are in very good shape, but it’s up to me to catch up.”
Coll succeeded Kevin McHugh as the club captain and has been impressed by Ollie Horgan’s winter shopping ahead of what they hope will be a first competitive outing on Friday night against Shelbourne in Ballybofey.
“We’ve a very good squad,” Coll says.
“It’s going to be very tough. Cobh went well all through last season. You have Longford, Shelbourne…All we have to do is grind out a few things here and there where ever we go.”
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