A penalty shoot out defeat to Strathroy Harps rounded off a tough end to the week for Enniskillen Town who saw Tummery Athletic dash their league title hopes by beating Dergview Reserves 24 hours earlier.

Town joint manager James McKenna admits that they have been left “gutted” by the way their season has concluded but stresses that they have to learn from it and move on.

“We are gutted to have finished empty handed for the season, a lot of work was put into it. We have a really good group of lads who were desperate to win but that’s football and we’ll take time for reflection now over the next couple of weeks and then go again.

“Credit to Tummery, they went on a serious run to win the league and then the cup final was just one of those days where we didn’t take our chances.We have a good group of young players, we just have to learn from it,” said McKenna.

It was missed chances that proved costly for Town on Friday night at Ferney Park, when they created enough to win the game but failed to take any of them.

“It wasn’t a case that we just did not perform, yes we could have been better, but I thought we played more than well enough to win a final.

“We were quite content to feel our way slowly into the game as long as we weren’t making mistakes and giving up chances, which we weren’t. We knew if we didn’t make any mistakes we would open them up and get chances of our own, which we did. On another day, one or two of the chances we had goes in but it just wasn’t the case.

“It says it all that their goalkeeper McNamee was a clear man of the match. That tells you that we have created chances, we just didn’t take them and they stayed in the game,” he said.

Ball in net

Town did have the ball in the net early on through Conall Quinn but this was controversially ruled out for offside even though it was a Harps player who had played the ball into Quinn’s path.

While McKenna acknowledges that it was a key moment, he accepts that it was mistake by the referee.

“When you get a goal disallowed that should never have been disallowed in a game that finishes 0-0 and you go on to lose on penalties, you have to say it was a massive moment. There is no doubt it was a key moment.

“That was a wee bit of luck that Strathroy got on the night and something that we are disappointed with but referees make mistakes and while it is hard to stomach, you just have to accept that it as a mistake and just one of those things,” he added.

A flash point at the end of the 90 minutes saw Town reduced to ten men for extra time with the dismissal of Kane Connor after he clashed with Harps player manager Benny Boyle while Harps goalkeeper McNamee also became involved. McKenna though felt his side continued to enjoy the better of things.

“Obviously the sending off hasn’t helped, I thought the two players should have been sent off, but it left us down a man going into extra time. I still felt we had the better chances even then but good luck to Strathroy, they defended well for long spells in the game and when it gets to penalties it is a lottery and they hit better penalties than us.”

Learning process

Town still have one game left, an away game against champions Tummery on Thursday night, and McKenna believes his side can learn from how the Dromore outfit who have bounced back from previous disappointments.

“We have Tummery to play on Thursday night and that will wrap the season up and we’ll have a break and come back next year and try and add one or two players and go again.

“Talking to the players over the weekend, they were positive and they were all hungry and want to go again.

“If you look at the Tummery team, they have won three leagues in a row but they had to go through the pain of losing a Junior Cup final and losing the league to Rangers in the last game of the season.

“They had to suffer to get to where they are and now we are at the point where we have suffer a bit and we just have to learn from it.”