Buckley bemoans the fickleness of football

The mistake that led to Derry's penalty will haunt St Patrick's

Normally the simplest and highly recommended option is to send a ball back the way it came. By the law of physics this should wrong-foot a chasing opponent and create space for the man who delivered the initial pass.

The one-two only works, however, if the "two" gets to its intended destination.

Yesterday, at a key juncture in the FAI Cup final between St Patrick's Athletic and Derry City the one-two broke down and St Patrick 's Athletic's punishment was a hammer blow in their quest to end a 51-year drought without this coveted trophy.

Make that 52 years.

One feels enormous sympathy for Brendan Clarke, the St Pat's goalkeeper. It was his error of judgment that gifted Derry the 68th minute penalty so ably dispatched by two-goal hero Rory Patterson.

There was much more to this thrilling encounter and Derry did engineer two clear-cut chances to kill off the contest but that second goal will haunt the Inchicore club throughout the winter.

Their captain and centre back is absolved of any blame, yet it was Conor Kenna's back pass that Clarke endeavoured to send back the way it came. By the laws of physics it should have wrong footed Stephen McLaughlin and created space for Kenna to waltz up field unopposed.

But this particular one-two didn't happen because McLaughlin read the goalkeeper's body language, getting a touch that saw the ball bobble into no man's land. Then he got himself between goalkeeper and ball.

Clarke had a further brain freeze and bundled into the winger leaving referee Neil Doyle with only one option. Penalty.

"It's not just Brendan," said manager Liam Buckley, understandably shielding his goalkeeper from the glare of error. "As a group we defend, the whole lot of us. It's just our general play I would have wanted it to be better today."

That is also true, especially the opening 45 minutes, which were notable for the rash of mistakes made by two normally rhythmic football teams.

"In the first-half both teams suffered from a little bit of nerves and the passing wasn't as fluent as it should have been," Buckley continued.

"In the second half I thought we were marginally better than them in our passing."

Buckley went on to state how fickle a football season can be; St Pat's were closing in on a league and cup double, now they have neither. At least they secured European football.

"That was our ambition at the start of the season so delighted we got that last week.

"Two weeks before that people were saying we could do the double. We ended up with third in the league and runners-up in the cup. That's the way it can go. If we can hold onto the bulk of our group I think we will be stronger for this year."

"If" being the operative word in an off-season laced with uncertainty.

Derry City manager Declan Devine arrived and told us he was lost for words. Of course, he wasn't. "For me this means everything. Three years ago we were on our knees, thrown out of the league. A group of local men regrouped and now we've won major honours today. We are back in Europe. This club is back where it belongs."