St Patrick's advance easily

Malahide Utd - 0 St Patrick's Athletic - 2: Negligent defending and some recklessness in the tackle meant Malahide's hopes of causing an upset ended well before half-time at Gannon Park as St Patrick's eased into the third round.

Goals after nine and 35 minutes put St Patrick's in control before Mark Cromwell, the Malahide right-back, was sent off for a second booking on 39 minutes for a foul on Paul Keegan as bad as the one on Sean O'Connor just seven minutes earlier that had brought him his first yellow card .

That was a pity, because the Leinster Senior League side had shown real promise and should have scored twice themselves in between the St Patrick's goals.

On both occasions Ray Whelehan was presented with excellent opportunities, but he shot the first at Barry Ryan, and the St Patrick's goalkeeper showed good agility to touch away his second effort from a header.

St Patrick's used the width of the excellent pitch well and punished slack marking to take their early lead.

Stephen Brennan combined well with Keegan, who had earlier headed wide of a gaping goal, to set up Mark Quigley and his powerful low drove in turn found the corner of the net.

A poor defensive header from a free kick dropped for Anto Murphy in the build-up to the second goal. Murphy found Trevor Molloy, whose shot was already over the line before O'Connor helped it to the net.

"The sending off was the turning point and any chance we had just went out the window," said Malahide manager Bobby Browne.

"Overall, I was pleased with our application. A lot of teams would have folded in the second half. We could have got a battering, but in fairness, they never really opened us up with 10 men in the whole second half.

"Conceding an early goal was sloppy and particularly disappointing, as we're normally solid enough defensively."

MALAHIDE UNITED: Blanche; Cromwell, Mitchell, Lawlor, Reddy; Doyle (O'Hanlon, 55 mins); Corcoran (Beesley, 63 mins), Shehabbadin, Whelehan, Logan; Griffin (Prenderville, 48 mins).

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Ryan; Murphy, Mulcahy, Maguire, Frost; M Quigley, Brennan, M Foley (Reilly, 80 mins), O'Connor (Rutherford, 56 mins); Keegan, Molloy (Roche, 77 mins).

Referee: H Whoriskey (Meath).