There may have been a couple of nail-biting moments along the way for Dr Tony O'Neill and the UCD management team, but in the end it was all fairly comfortable in this play-off at Rathbane for a place in the National League Premier Division. Home and away, they beat Limerick to put an end to what O'Neill described afterwards as a nightmare season for the club, and, just over a week before delegates from all of the clubs ponder how the league might be best structured for the future, they underlined once again the considerable gap that continues to exist between the two divisions. On the day the scoreline was a fair enough reflection of the relative strengths of these sides. But Dave Connell was justly proud of his men after an entertaining tussle. Seven of his panel had made the leap from the city's junior football scene only last summer, and he was not going to worry too much if taking another giant step up so soon had proven beyond them.
"They did well out there," he said, "and as I've said before, it's all part of the learning process. Hopefully we can go on from this and go up without needing to win any replays next season." On the strength of this, they certainly won't be too far off the mark.
They might even have made it yesterday had their best chance of the first half gone in. But Seamus Kelly did tremendously well to push Howie King's gentle lob just over the crossbar.
Jason O'Connor might have found the net in a scramble that followed the resulting corner, but he didn't, and instead the home team was dealt a cruel blow as a quick break down field by the students ended with Robert Griffin's short cross being cut out by one defender, taking a goalwards deflection off another and finally being pushed in by Albert Finnan as he scrambled back to intercept.
That seemed like it would be enough to settle it all in favour of the students, and another might have followed early in the second period when the local defence failed to clear Michael O'Byrne's corner from the right and Clive Delaney then Jason Sherlock forced goal-line blocks.
In the defence, though, the students were hardly a model of efficiency either. Through the bulk of the first period Delaney and Tony McDonnell, both comfortably over six feet tall, had dealt easily with a string of high balls. But on the couple of occasions that Jason O'Connor had managed to hold the ball up and bring other players into the game, the Dubliners had looked shaky enough.
When the home side's goal came, however, it was from the right. Ronan Hanrahan threw the ball short to Ray O'Halloran, who in turn skipped past three challenges before slipping the ball into the bottom left corner. It was a cracker and threatened to spark a revival, but the home side were taking some risks at the back themselves.
Sure enough, they paid for it when Tony McDonnell's long clearance found Sherlock in space. Eddie Hickey, who had had a fine afternoon, rushed out to attempt the block, but the striker was too quick and from 30 yards he drove the ball past the goalkeeper and into the empty net.
Connell chased his losses and paid the usual price when Sherlock broke down the right shortly afterwards and, after Hickey had done well to parry an awkwardly bouncing shot, Ciaran Martyn stepped up to sidefoot home from no more than six yards.
Limerick: Hickey; Hanrahan, O'Halloran, White, Casey; O'Neill, S Byrne, Tobin, Finnan; O'Connor, King. Subs: Browne for S Byrne (56 mins), G Byrne for Casey (80 mins).
UCD: Kelly; McLoughlin, Delaney, McDonnell, McAuley; Martyn, Lynch, Kavanagh, O'Byrne; Sherlock, Griffin. Subs: Kilmurray for Sherlock (90 mins), Dunne for Martyn (91 mins), O'Donnell for O'Byrne (93 mins).
Referee: H Byrne (Dublin).
