Showpiece stilted by lack of enterprise

The Donegal day-trippers who came in their thousands expecting a night to remember were, like the rest of us, disappointed. Instead, they got a day to forget with two sides primarily intent on not being beaten producing a poor game that was short on genuine enterprise and shorter still on entertainment.

Only in the last 15 minutes did it really open up. By then Bray were, on the one hand, beginning to tire and, on the other, probably sensing that failure to win a game they had just about edged throughout might well prove costly when it came to next weekend's replay back at Tolka Park.

In those closing stages, it was certainly Pat Devlin's side that looked the more likely to nick a winner. But the Wanderers boss insisted afterwards that Maurice Farrell was robbed of a clear-cut shooting chance a quarter of an hour from time by a foul that should have been punished with a penalty.

And four minutes from time, Brian McKenna, subsequently named as the Harp Lager Man of the Match, produced a spectacular stop from Stephen Fox to extend the domestic season by a week. There was little doubt which club went away happier that it was going to have to pass out another round of pay packets.

Harps had come to town yesterday as firm favourites to win their first FAI Cup in 25 years and will probably return next weekend with the majority of neutrals tipping them again. Tactically, though, they were soundly beaten by a Wanderers side that stifled their attempts to create in mid-field and came very close to simply smothering their bid for glory before it had even gotten into its stride.

Wanderers, Devlin said afterwards, had looked to play three men up front with four across mid-field, but with Philip Keogh and John Ryan constantly dropping back into mid-field they regularly ended up with six in the middle.

That proved to a little too much for the likes of Donal O'Brien and Fergal Harkin, who struggled to provide front-runners Jonathon Speak and James Mulligan with anything through the middle that might have sent them through on goal.

But for the wide men, Tom Mohan and Eamon Kavanagh, the better part of the afternoon was a nightmare with no space for either man to manoeuvre and precious little time for them for them to figure out that they had to get rid of the ball. . . and fast.

From Bray's point of view, it was all working out rather nicely up until half-time. They had the better possession in the first period and more opportunities from set pieces - Devlin's side, for instance had seven corners in the opening 45 minutes, compared to two for their opponents.

In front of goal, though, they struggled badly and during that first period the only man to test McKenna seriously was Speak, the Harps striker dropping back to help at a corner, but almost heading into his own top left corner.

At the other end, Harps could get little right, Mohan and Mulligan coming as close as they had done up until then to string something together in the 44th minute only for Mulligan to over-hit the return ball and allow John Walsh to sprint out and gather on the edge of his area.

If the Harps defence generally looked to be comfortable at this stage, the Wanderers trio of Mich Doohan, Jody Lynch and sweeper Colm Tresson were positively cruising and it was difficult to see how either side would look to change things at the break in order to get themselves into a more commanding position.

Predictably enough, neither side wanted to tinker, the only substitution of the afternoon being forced on Bray when Ryan injured himself in a challenge on O'Brien. The upshot was, though, that as the match moved towards its conclusion, there were plenty of tired legs out there and gaps began opening up where none had been before.

Harkin came close to opening the scoring with just short of an hour played when he carried the ball forward out of mid-field and let loose from 30 yards with a low drive that Walsh did well enough to push around his post at full stretch.

In the minutes that followed, Harps began to get on top a little and there was the sense that we had, perhaps, witnessed the turning point. But pretty soon the Donegal-men were riding their luck at the other end where a corner from the right was allowed to run beyond the far post to Alan Smith who might have done a lot better with the shot.

It was to get more nerve wracking for Charlie McGeever's side as the end closed in with the whole of Bray bench on their feet to protest nine minutes later when referee John McDermott chose to wave play on despite frantic appeals to the effect that Declan Boyle and Tom Mohan and teamed up to bring Farrell to the ground.

"It was definitely a penalty," insisted the Bray mid-fielder afterwards. "One of them pulled me and one of them pushed. I just went up in the air and landed on my back."

Not surprisingly there weren't too many in the Harps camp who agreed, but nobody contested the fact either that, had Stephen Fox put away the best chance of the game with four minutes remaining then the game would have been up for the northerners.

Philip Keogh's cross from the right set Fox up for what should have been a famous winner, but the 23-year-old panicked a little and caught the ball with his shoulder as he attempted the header. Even then it was awkward for McKenna who had to nudge off his line with his fingertips.

Two minutes later, Speak could have compounded young Fox's misery when Harkin fed Mohan and the former Derry City winger curled in the sort of cross that the undersized Harps strike-force must have expecting to spend their afternoon chasing. When one finally arrived, however, it had just a yard too much pace on it, the ball spinning behind into disappointed Harps fans who must have thought, just fleetingly, that the victory they had been expecting was finally at hand.

Bray Wanderers: Walsh; Doohan, Tresson, Lynch; Kenny, Tierney, Smith, Farrell; Ryan, Fox, Keogh. Sub: Brien for Ryan (28 mins).

Finn Harps: McKenna; Scanlon, Boyle, Dykes, Minnock; Mohan, Harkin, O'Brien, Kavanagh; Speak, Mulligan.

Referee: J McDermott (Dublin).