2023 Season, Arrivals and Departures

[total hoofball]

I think all Shels fans remember Brian Gartland with alot fondness as an unknown ex-Bray U21 player with his equalising header after about 10 minutes in our opening night of the 2007 First division against Kildare County after being demoted, that goal at Tolka was like resuscitation after one of the worst off seasons for any club in LOI history

Dermot Keely had zero patience in giving players with potential like Gartland any chance at Shels after a poor start with a young inexperienced squad, Keely even dumped him in centre mid for a couple of games, one the transfer window opened in July he was canned mostly to the bench and let go at the end of the season. I could see Gartland's reading of the game looked very good but he needed more game time with higher quality experienced players around him and fitness/conditioning work.

He looked much better and developed at Monaghan which didn't shock me, why he lasted 3 seasons there and wasn't picked by a Premier Division team or Shels again was another mystery. He was on trial again at Shels in 2013 after Alan Mathews was sacked when we were struggling eventually got relegated but very luckily for Gartland Kenny swept in to sign him and the rest is history for him and Dundalk

[Jd2793]

bolger signs up for 2023 with cork city. excellent news for city. hopefully 2 more cms on the way to give him a hand in there next year

[2 Year Contract]

Brian Gartland retired,5 leagues,3 FAI cups and 3 League cups is some going.....

Just saw some of his career stats on twitter. The one that jumped out a mile was 50 goals in his career. Incredible goal return from a centre half!

[Shearer]

Former Shamrock Rovers, Cork City and Athlone Town player Joel Coustrain departs Treaty United for Junior soccer.

Unfortunately for all parties he was very poor during his time with the club and it is absolutely unbelievable to think that he played at for two of the biggest clubs in the country.

Him only scoring once in 45 games for Treaty, and then scoring twice on his first game back in junior soccer probably speaks of the decline of standard, with the greatest of respect.

[redobit]

Dave Rogers confirmed as Harps manager on a 4 year full time deal. Really optimistic about this. Progressive coach and wants to play football the right way.

https://finnharps.ie/dave-rogers-appointed-manager/

Interesting one by Harps and a bit of a sea change ... he might be too progressive for Harps!!! Ollie was a great character, football man, blah blah but looking from the outside he was holding Harps back.

I always felt Harps used to be a club with a bit of ambition. But under Horgan, especially the last half dozen years, there was nothing. The most the seemed to hope for was a play off match and avoiding relegation was seen as a big success. Horgan instilled that mindset and the club and fans bought into hook, line and sinker. Zero ambition in truth. Sooner or later it will catch up with ya and it did last season.

Im sure people will say that Horgan was just being realistic but you need to be optimistic too. Horgan almost had a cult mentality instilled into club that that scrapping by was fine. Can they move away from that with a manager who seems to want to look up rather down.

[joey B]

Interesting one by Harps and a bit of a sea change ... he might be too progressive for Harps!!! Ollie was a great character, football man, blah blah but looking from the outside he was holding Harps back.

I always felt Harps used to be a club with a bit of ambition. But under Horgan, especially the last half dozen years, there was nothing. The most the seemed to hope for was a play off match and avoiding relegation was seen as a big success. Horgan instilled that mindset and the club and fans bought into hook, line and sinker. Zero ambition in truth. Sooner or later it will catch up with ya and it did last season.

Im sure people will say that Horgan was just being realistic but you need to be optimistic too. Horgan almost had a cult mentality instilled into club that that scrapping by was fine. Can they move away from that with a manager who seems to want to look up rather down.

The time was absolutley right for a parting of ways ,but theres plenty who would have kept him on,I think he did vey well for the majority of his time,but his last 2 years were not good,only staying up on the last day of the season 2 seasons ago was a failure with the squad of players we had and last season was obviously a disaster....

Time will tell on Rogers but he seems to have come from good standard of coaching,but management and recruitment is a diffrent ball game.....

[Jd2793]

Former Shamrock Rovers, Cork City and Athlone Town player Joel Coustrain departs Treaty United for Junior soccer.

Unfortunately for all parties he was very poor during his time with the club and it is absolutely unbelievable to think that he played at for two of the biggest clubs in the country.

Him only scoring once in 45 games for Treaty, and then scoring twice on his first game back in junior soccer probably speaks of the decline of standard, with the greatest of respect.

mental he was ever over in UK

[outspoken]

Massey a brilliant signing for Bray. Struggled badly at end of last season at Drogs so always felt he'd drop down this season, was hoping maybe to Longford but obviously he has history at Bray. If they can keep him and Webster fit next season that's got the makings of a brilliant partnership at FD level

[Jd2793]

I'll have to revisit my opinions of Ian Ryan if he doesn't have bray challenging. They are shaping up to be better than Galway.

[Loifan_76]

Sean brennan gone from UCD to Drogs. One of our better players. Best of luck to him.

[pineapple stu]

Ouchie.

The hope was that next year would be Drogheda/UCD at the bottom in the same way that this year was Harps/UCD. So really can't afford players like Brennan going there of all clubs.

Looks like a long season ahead...

[Neish]

Interesting one by Harps and a bit of a sea change ... he might be too progressive for Harps!!! Ollie was a great character, football man, blah blah but looking from the outside he was holding Harps back.

I always felt Harps used to be a club with a bit of ambition. But under Horgan, especially the last half dozen years, there was nothing. The most the seemed to hope for was a play off match and avoiding relegation was seen as a big success. Horgan instilled that mindset and the club and fans bought into hook, line and sinker. Zero ambition in truth. Sooner or later it will catch up with ya and it did last season.

Im sure people will say that Horgan was just being realistic but you need to be optimistic too. Horgan almost had a cult mentality instilled into club that that scrapping by was fine. Can they move away from that with a manager who seems to want to look up rather down.

Agree here, Ollie Horgan deserves much credit from transforming Harps from a team that languished round mid table first division for the 3 or 4 season he took over to promotion in two seasons and 6 of 9 years in the Premier Division. The work and time he but in during his 9 years spell can not be questioned

However he was very negative in his tactics which when facing the likes of Sham Rovers, Dundalk etc may of been required there seem little change on tact when we faced teams around us also battling for premier survival, he was very slow to make changes when players/tactics were not getting results. His overly aggressive motions/actions toward refs and officials was pointless and caused the club much in fines etc. In 2021 he got a budget and assembled the best squad Harps since the late 90's & in the early part of the season they were let play and we were getting results against the top teams, but then a few poor results and Horgan revert back to old, defensive tactics and playing often in-form players out of position or not at all, which IMO contributed to the mass exodus at the end of that season.

[Jd2793]

MARKEY linked to bohs? would be a good signing for them. any more on ben mccormack? hoping now we (cork city) have been taken over we've the budget to challenge to sign him

[RealJohn91]

Would love Markey at Bohs. Was the best player on the pitch in most of the Bohs/Drogheda games last season. Heard he had a decent job so not sure if going full time with us is a goer unfortunately.

[The Bowler]

The last of my predictions sadly turns out to be correct. Sean Brennan from UCD to Drogs. UCD have really destroyed their own model, took in a load of non students in recent years, and they've all now left, leaving them high and dry. The normal player departure cycle of losing a few each year when they finish college has been blown apart. No clue what the starting 11 will look like on matchday 1 next season. But I don't fancy our chances of hitting 10 points for the season.

[Martinho II]

See that we have lost yet another of our players that came thro our underage Matthew Dunne to Wexford. How has this being allowed to happen so easily?

[Longfordian]

I assume Henderson has his own players lined up. That's life in the First Division, and they'll probably be back at some point in the future. I wish them well but I wouldn't say any of them are irreplaceable at the same time.

[oriel]

I think all Shels fans remember Brian Gartland with alot fondness as an unknown ex-Bray U21 player with his equalising header after about 10 minutes in our opening night of the 2007 First division against Kildare County after being demoted, that goal at Tolka was like resuscitation after one of the worst off seasons for any club in LOI history

Dermot Keely had zero patience in giving players with potential like Gartland any chance at Shels after a poor start with a young inexperienced squad, Keely even dumped him in centre mid for a couple of games, one the transfer window opened in July he was canned mostly to the bench and let go at the end of the season. I could see Gartland's reading of the game looked very good but he needed more game time with higher quality experienced players around him and fitness/conditioning work.

He looked much better and developed at Monaghan which didn't shock me, why he lasted 3 seasons there and wasn't picked by a Premier Division team or Shels again was another mystery. He was on trial again at Shels in 2013 after Alan Mathews was sacked when we were struggling eventually got relegated but very luckily for Gartland Kenny swept in to sign him and the rest is history for him and Dundalk

Just to be clear, Dundalk signed Gartland from Portadown in mid 2013.

[Jd2793]

any idea what ryan cassidy is at now? doesnt seem to have ended up anywhere after bohs?

[joey B]

Kyle O’Connor signing for Longford from Shels….