St Patrick's Athletic 0 Drogheda United 1Another win here for Paul Doolin's Drogheda United side maintained their early charge in the championship race but there were signs at Richmond Park last night that both these sides are making the sort of progress desired by the managers. St Patrick's showed a resilience often absent last season and their visitors again showed they can grind out results.
Once again it was Paul Keegan who bagged the winner for Drogheda, the 21-year-old showing great composure three minutes from time as he beat two defenders and the goalkeeper before slipping the ball home from close range for his third league goal in five league games.
The contribution of the back four was crucial as well, though, another clean sheet paving the way for the win.
Late on first Glen Fitzpatrick then Keegan might have added to the margin but the former's finish was desperately poor while the latter looked lucky to escape a booking for diving after referee Declan Hanney had declined to give him a penalty for Barry Ryan's injury-time challenge.
Drogheda arrived as league leaders with three wins and a draw to show for their four outings to date. Goals, though, have been a problem with just three scored before last night and it wasn't hard to see why in the first half as the visitors struggled to string more than a couple of passes together.
Drogheda might have been expected to get the better of things in midfield but there was little evidence before the break of the sort of form that has won Keegan and Stephen Bradley rave reviews in recent weeks.
All too often they looked happy to loft the ball high towards the front men but there was nothing like the sort of service Declan O'Brien and Shane Barrett would have required to trouble the St Patrick's defence and by the interval Drogheda had had just two attempts on goal - the first from Shane Robinson, the second from Barrett - neither of which required Ryan to make a save.
The locals had, in contrast, gone close on a couple of occasions with the game's other Paul Keegan having a close-range strike disallowed for offside while Trevor Molloy came within a whisker of nicking a goal on the stroke of half-time when the former under-21 international turned Alan Reilly's corner just wide of the post with a delicately-flicked header.
Having survived to the break without conceding, Drogheda came out for the second intent on imposing themselves a little more convincingly.
As the weather conditions deteriorated terribly, they started to push the ball around with a bit of purpose and while the hosts chased them down relentlessly they were finding it more difficult to win possession.
With the Drogheda back four looking more settled and the midfield taking a grip on things, there only remained the matter of testing Ryan which Barrett should have done when O'Brien sent him racing clear. Mark Rutherford, largely out of sorts out on the right of the St Patrick's midfield, tracked his opponent 40 yards and as Barrett lined up his shot his final touch was poor, leaving him with an angle so tight as he rounded the goalkeeper he could only find the side-netting.
Minutes later Ryan was finally forced into a stop and it was a good one with Robinson's fiercely-struck low shot from 30 yards heading for the bottom corner until it was touched just around the post.
At that point it seemed Drogheda would press home their advantage but while they always looked the more likely to grab a winner, it took longer than the travelling supporters might have expected it to come. For the last three minutes, though, the singing from their end of the main end of the stand suggested they reckoned it had been worth the wait.
ST PATRICK'S: Ryan; Murphy, Mulcahy, Maguire, Frost; Rutherford, Reilly (Perth, 72 mins), M Foley (Larsen, 90 mins), O'Connor; Keegan, Molloy (M Quigley, 80 mins).
DROGHEDA UNITED: Connor; Shelley, Gavin, Gartland, Webb; Robinson, Bradley, Keegan, Keddy (Whelan, 77 mins); O'Brien, Barrett (Barrett, 61 mins).
Referee: D Hanney (Dublin).
