Airtricity League Premier Division: St Patrick’s Athletic 3 Derry City 0
Capital punishment for Derry
From Daire Walsh at Richmond Park
IT was a night to forget for Derry City AT Richmond Park last night as three second half goals for St Pat’s saw them slump to a heavy defeat.
It was the second trip to Dublin for Declan Devine’s charges in the space of four days, following on from their impressive 2-0 triumph over Shelbourne on Friday night in Drumcondra.
Though the quick turnaround was not ideal, they would have been hoping to build on the confidence gained from that win, and they had the first chance of last night’s contest after just two minutes when Marc Brolly delivered an enticing ball to Patrick McEleney, whose shot was gathered by Barry Murphy.
Given that this game was a ‘must-win’ for Pat’s in terms of their title hopes, it was no surprise that they increased the tempo, and Derry ‘keeper Gerard Doherty had to be on his toes to keep out a John Russell effort from the edge of the area.
As the first half progressed, chances were starting to become few and far between.
Derry suffered a blow just after the half-hour mark when Stewart Greacen twisted his knee making a clearance and had to be replaced, but the Brandywell finished the half brightly, as Brolly fired just over after terrific approach play by Ruaidhri Higgins and McEleney.
Derry also approached the start of the second period in lively fashion, but were caught with a sucker punch 12 minutes after the break.
The move for the opening goal started when left-back Ian Bermingham found James Chambers in the middle of the pitch.
He spread it out to Christy Fagan who pulled back to allow Sean O’Connor to smash home from close-range.
Derry responded with headed efforts from Mark Farren and Conor Murphy who went close in the 64th andd 75th minutes.
In their quest to restore parity, Derry were playing a much higher line than they had earlier on in the contest, and they would be caught on the break with three minutes left when Chris Forrester played a
telling pass into Kelly, who smashed home clinically at the back post.
This killed off any chance that Derry had of forcing their way back into the match, and substitute Vinny Faherty would rub further salt into the Candystripes’ wounds by finishing off a fine move two minutes into stoppage time.
MATCH STATS
St Patrick’s Athletic: Murphy; O’Brien, Browne, Kenna, Bermingham; Chambers, Russell, Carroll; O’Connor (Forrester 77), Fagan (Faherty 67), Kelly.
Subs not used: Clarke, Flynn, Coombes, Bolger, Price.
Derry City: Doherty; Madden, Greacen (McBride 33), S McEleney, B McNamee; P McEleney, Molloy, Higgins, Brolly (Duffy 65); Farren (Curran 77), Murphy.
Subs not used: Ferry, Bonner, T McNamee, Rooney.
Referee: Rob Rogers (Dublin).