Dundalk ease past tame Finn Harps to extend lead

Dundalk 2 Finn Harps 0

It is difficult enough even to keep track of Dundalk’s fixtures these days so the idea that the club is managing to exert much control over the order in which they are being re-fixed seems remote but they could scarcely have asked for anything more from Abbotstown than this.

As Stephen Kenny’s men prepare for their first Europa League group stage outing, Harps came and played like a sparring partner hired to take a beating before a prize fight; gloves to the head, rolling with the punches and never, ever, threatening to do any damage themselves.

When they conceded after just six minutes to Pat McEleney’s mid-range strike, it seemed they might end up wishing the referee could step in and stop things at some stage but by tightly packing their own area and smothering the majority of the Dundalk attacks, they kept things very respectable and must have relatively content to lose by just two given that they never seemed to seriously aspire to scoring themselves.

In their own way, Harps have, like their hosts, bigger fish to fry later this week with the game against Longford likely to have a greater bearing on whether they maintain their top flight status for next season. And so here they started out much as a team that had conceded 10 in two previous league meetings with the champions might be expected to, with five at the back and another four not very far away at all.

Last time the two sides met it ended 7-0 but here there was still just one it at the break with Stephen Kenny’s men struggling to break their opponents down and add to McEleney’s perfectly placed strike to the bottom left corner after Harps had given away possession from their own throw in and been slow then to wake up to the resulting danger.

Ciaran Gallagher deserved much of the credit for keeping the locals to that until the 75th minute with the best of half a dozen or more decent saves preventing his own left back, Ciaran Coll scoring, as he did in that seven goal defeat, at the wrong end.

It was, for most of the night, the only end anyone in blue was going to score at for lone striker Ruari Keating was really only involved when weighing in behind the defensive effort and, after he was carried off injured, Dave Scully didn’t fare much better.

Dundalk, meanwhile, pummelled them for most of the night without having to exert themselves too much but aside from the Daryl Horgan’s close range strike on the turn 15 minutes from time that finally doubled their lead, they struggled really to land meaningful blows.

Dundalk: Rogers; Gannon, Barrett, Boyle, Massey; Shields, Benson; Mountney (Finn, 68 mins), McEleney (Shiels, 76 mins), Horgan; McMillan (Kilduff, 82 mins).

Finn Harps: Gallagher; J Mailey, Cowan, P Mailey, McMonagle, Coll; Curran, McNamee (Coyle, 76 mins), Harkin, Funston (Banda, 85 mins); Keating (Scully, 52 mins).

Referee: N Doyle (Dublin).