Enniskillen Town 1 Strathroy Harps 1

“It was a poor spectacle, not good at all,” was Town joint manager Rory Judge’s withering assessment of Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Strathroy Harps at the Lakeland Forum.

The visitors had led through a Finn Grimes effort early on and Strathroy deservedly went in at the break with the advantage against a disjointed Town side.

While the quality remained poor, the home side at least did get more of a footing in the second half of the contest and Johnny Hoy assured them of a point when he slotted home but Judge was not happy with the performance as his side fell 13 points adrift of the leaders in the table.

“It was a poor performance. We never seemed to stitch any rhythm of play together, especially in the first half.

“We made bad decisions but then the more you examine it they were just as bad as us,” said Judge.

“The effort at least improved in the second half and we were more forceful. We pushed them back and at the end it felt like two points dropped because we had a few chances that we didn’t take,” he added.

A lack of a settled team has really cost Town this season and Judge explains that it won’t get any better next month either as GAA reaches the championship stage in Fermanagh.

“We have a fantastic squad on paper but the strongest team we have been able to get out was against Kesh when we beat them down there.

“It has been a very hard season so far with players having GAA commitments and it won’t get any better with the club championships starting in Fermanagh in October.

“We are just going to have to batten down the hatches and keep going until we have everybody back and hopefully in November we will start to see a more settled side,” he said.

It was Strathroy who got off to the brighter start on Saturday and with only seven minutes on the clock they opened the scoring as Daniel Parkinson flicked on a corner and Grimes was left in space to head home from close range to give the visitors the lead.

The Harps continued to have the better of the exchanges over the remainder of the half and it required a fine save from goalkeeper Gary Doherty to ensure that only one goal divided the sides at the interval.

Town did come more into the contest after the break with Strathroy content to sit back and hit the home side on the break and from one such counter they clipped the crossbar.

At the other end Town were eventually beginning to threaten the Harps goal with James McKenna having a chance deflected wide before substitute Hoy wasted a good opportunity to equalise.

Hoy was though posing a threat and he came up with the leveller late on as he steered home a right wing cross.

Indeed, Hoy had a gilt edged to snatch all three points for Town but he failed to convert as the sides had to settle for a point each from a disappointing contest.

Town are on their travels this Saturday when they take on Magheraveely at the Peace Link, Clones while Strathroy are away to Killen Rangers.