SOCCER AIRTRICITY LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION: St Patrick's Ath 1 Sporting Fingal 1HAVING SCORED twice in their 3-0 win at Dundalk last week, Dave Mulcahy proved his worth to St Patrick's Athletic again at Richmond Park yesterday with a late equaliser to move them back to the top of the Premier Division.
Conan Byrne looked to have ensured there would be no Europa League hangover for Sporting when giving them a 67th-minute lead against the run of play. Ronan Finn’s fierce shot deflected off team-mate Alan Kirby to hit St Patrick’s goalkeeper Gary Rogers full in the face and Byrne followed up to rifle home the rebound for his third goal of the season.
Mulcahy, who started the game in central defence, though had now moved into midfield, might have levelled earlier but his downward header from Gareth O’Connor’s corner bounced up and off the bar 10 minutes later with Sporting defender Shaun Williams then appearing to handle the ball.
But St Patrick’s would get their reward on 88 minutes. Brendan Clarke was caught well off his line as Mulcahy got on the end of Stuart Byrne’s cross from the right to loop a header over the stranded goalkeeper and into the net.
“We kept going,” said St Patrick’s manager Pete Mahon. “Having said that we’d enough chances to have won the game. We changed our formation three times. We set out the team to try and counteract Fingal, even though we were at home. They’ve three very good players in midfield and we didn’t envisage Shaun Williams playing in central defence.
“Though we got to grips with them, unfortunately we went a goal down when we switched off at a free-kick. We let Ronan Finn run. That happens, heat and humidity was tough. Fingal fell asleep a few times but we didn’t punish them.”
While Sporting may have been the more constructive in their build-up play, St Patrick’s, with a more direct approach, had the clearest chances in a disappointing first half. Stuart Byrne fired over early on while striker Paul Byrne shot into the side-netting and over the top with two openings in quick succession. Derek Doyle then nipped around Clarke only to fire wide of an open goal, albeit from a very tight angle.
Mahon made two changes at the break and both, Brian Cash and Danny North, came close early on, the former with a header that was pushed round a post by Clarke and the latter with an overhead kick that was narrowly wide.
“It was probably a disappointing game, “ said Sporting manager Liam Buckley. “There wasn’t a huge amount of football being played. Their direct style of 4-4-1-1 is more geared towards drawing than winning. Bearing in mind we’d no recognised centre-half we did very well. It was disappointing to be 1-0 up and not put a foot on ball. We’d a poor last 20 minutes.”
ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Pender, Mulcahy, Kenna, Lynch; McAllister, S Byrne, O'Connor, D Doyle (Cash, half-time); Guy, P Byrne (North, half-time).
SPORTING FINGAL: Clarke; O'Brien, Williams, Gannon, Fitzgerald; Finn, McFaul, Kirby (Wilson, 90+1); Byrne (Cahill, 87 mins), Crowe (O'Neill, 63 mins), Zayed.
Referee: A Buttimer (Cork).
