THERE'LL be much gnashing of teeth over Drogheda's cruelly-swift return to the lower flight, and not just in Drogheda. Good club, good support (if only when things are going well), good little ground and a good little team who play good ball.

Meantime Athlone and Cork survive - it hardly seems fair. But, by and large, Drogheda only have themselves to blame.

This was their season in microcosm. Despite a nervy performance, with groans greeting every misplaced pass from a small but equally tetchy crowd, United had the better chances but when it came to the crunch, they couldn't buy a goal. Needing to equal Athlone's result in Derry, a point at United Park yesterday would have ensured a play-off, and in truth Sligo were there for the taking.

Missing three key players through injury and suspension, Sligo were further disrupted by three more injuries during the game, each of them in turn forcing radical reshuffles by manager Steve Cotterill. By the end they were playing their reserve goalkeeper, Nicky Brujos, on his own up front and only three outfield players finished the game in the positions they started.

Alas for Drogheda, they themselves were down to 10 men by then. Drogheda's commitment and Sligo's upheavals combined to ensure that the home side had the better of the first half, but the game was meandering to a scoreless draw when Drogheda mid-fielder Trevor Crolly handled Steve Berks's goalbound 71st-minute header.

John McDermott dismissed him and Padraig Moran converted the penalty for his 14th league goal of the campaign. Eleven minutes later Mick Harte's goalbound shot was blocked and immediately news filtered through of Athlone's equaliser.

Six minutes from time it was formally announced. Ten-man Drogheda pummelled the Sligo goal, and in injury time an unmarked Harte flashed a header from Tom Sullivan's excellent cross wide of an unguarded far post.

For several minutes after the game the majority of the crowd waited to hear the worst as RTE radio went from Old Trafford to Mondello to Hove (for cricket) to an ad break, before finally confirmation from the Brandywell came through.

"It's a sad day for us," whispered a suitably-mournful Jim McLaughlin afterwards. "I thought we deserved better but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I thought we had enough of the game to get something out of it."

In the immediate aftermath of what must have been an unexpected demotion, it was hard to know how the shattered club would "take it from here" but as to his own position, he said: "I don't know. It's up to them," presumably meaning the club's directors.

Off he shuffled, shaking hands with club members on the way out. This would be a sad way to end one of the domestic game's most enduringly successful careers, but it probably does.

Meanwhile, a 31-year-old manager with a bright future could be heard in the Rovers' dressingroom musing about the likes of Paris St Germain in the mid-summer Intertoto Cup. On the day and over the season - their best in the league since winning the title in `77 - Cotterill had maximised their resources intelligently.

Furthermore, his team had kept going until the very end. "That tells you something about us," said Cotterill afterwards. An honest, willing team who have responded manfully to their season's many stings and arrows, it satisfied them no end that they usurped their bugbears from Shelbourne to finish third and copper-fasten European football.

That's if the club take up the Intertoto offer, for there's talk of them seeking exemption from the competition.