The harsh

"Hazard has only really played for about ten minutes in this game, but when that ten minutes includes a strike like that it doesn’t massively matter. He picks the ball up about 25 yards out, just to the left of centre, cuts across the face of goal and almost delicately guides a powerful shot into the bottom corner. Karnezis got his fingertips to it - and the harsh might say he should have saved it - but it eludes him." (The Guardian's football report.)

Is "the harsh" a noun meaning "the harsh people" in the passage above?