AIRTRICITY LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION St Patrick's Athletic 2 Bray Wanderers 3:HAVING FAILED to win away in the league outside of Louth last year, and lost their two games at Richmond Park by a combined five goals to nil, Pat Devlin's Bray Wanderers side must have made the short journey to Inchicore yesterday more in hope than any great sense of expectation.
At 2-0 down with 20 minutes to play last night, they could have been forgiven if despair had set in but instead it was the home side that looked dejected at the end with two goals from substitute Conor Murphy and a deflected free by Joe Kendrick nine minutes from time adding up to a remarkable comeback by the visitors.
Over the 90 minutes, however, St Patrick’s Athletic fans might argue their team had slightly the better of things, and if they had taken their chances a rather scrappy game certainly might have been beyond Bray at the interval.
The hosts looked comfortable at the back up until then and created the bulk of the game’s half chances. Even after they’d taken the lead midway through the half, courtesy of a spectacular own goal by Derek Prendergast, though, they never looked settled enough to be really dominant. They over relied on long balls to their front men depriving their midfield of the chance to settle into a rhythm. Bray, however, looked poor throughout most of the early exchanges that it didn’t really seem to matter that the Dubliners hadn’t capitalised on their superiority.
Evan McMillan did double the home side’s lead early in the second period when he headed home Daryl Kavanagh’s corner from the right at the near post despite a densely populated line.
Devlin must have suspected the game was up at that stage and yet he was clearly determined not to let the points slip away with a fight. A little over an hour in he moved to change the shape of his side, replacing two midfielders with two attackers; a gamble for which he was quickly rewarded.
Even before then, St Patrick’s had started to look shaky at the back with Jake Kelly and John Mulroy getting chances to line up shots from inside the area. Murphy’s two goals, though, came from a closer range than that with the under-18 international tapping home his first from a couple of yards after a low cross by Kendrick and then turning home a Kelly ball from only a little further out 15 minutes from time.
Eight minutes from time the turnaround was complete with Kenrick’s free clipping over the wall to beat Gary Rogers. The small contingent of travelling fans was ecstatic but their side had to scramble out of trouble a couple of times in the dying minutes before the victory was finally secured.
ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Pender, E McMillan, Kenna, Bermingham; Kavanagh (Keegan, 87 mins), McFaul, Mulcahy, Murphy (Doyle, 61 mins); Daly (North, 78 mins), D McMillan.
BRAY WANDERERS: Gregg; Webster, Mitchell, Prendergast, Kendrick; Zambra (O'Neill, 66 mins), O'Connor (Murphy, 66 mins), Demspey, Kelly (Doyle, 86 mins); Mulroy, Shiels.
Referee: A Buttimer(Cork).
