St Patrick's A 1 Derry City 1:AFTER A difficult start to the season on their home patch, St Patrick's results in Richmond Park have improved markedly of late while the quality of their performances have been almost unrecognisable.

They were good again last night but not quite effective enough to take three points from a hugely entertaining game they dominated, should have won but, given the amount of chances they allowed Eamon Zayed over the course of the 90 minutes, might easily have lost too.

Though the last encounter between these sides, up at the Brandywell in April, also yielded just a goal apiece, they came into the game as the league’s top two scorers and it wasn’t difficult to see why over the opening stages as both sides sought to play an attractive brand of open, attacking football.

The visitors actually top that particular chart by quite a distance thanks to very big wins over UCD and Galway and it was they who eventually got the opener here despite the fact that it was Pete Mahon’s side who made the brighter start.

They pushed the ball around well in midfield and attack and repeatedly unsettled a Derry back four, whose task wasn’t made any easier by the heavy downpour that started shortly before kick-off and continued through the opening 10 minutes or so.

By then, Daryl Kavanagh and Stephen Bradley had already both gone close to putting the home side in front but the chances, it soon became clear, would be plentiful at both ends with Zayed handed free headers twice over the course of the first half hour that Gary Rogers must have been relieved to see bounce across the face of his goal and wide.

The goalkeeper’s luck didn’t last. The Dubliners may have looked the better side but it was City who produced the required finish to go ahead just over half an hour in.

Ruaidhri Higgins fed Stephen McLaughlin and the 20-year-old produced a neat bit of footwork to sidestep a challenge before striking a low shot that Rogers could only could get enough of a touch on as he rushed forward to turn it on to the inside of the post.

Briefly, City threatened to settle a little more into things and build on their lead but the slightly frantic nature of the contest resurfaced quickly enough and the locals got back on top with Derek Doyle threatening down the left, Neil Harney pushing forward out of defence down the right and Dave Mulcahy and Bradley having the better of things against Kevin Deery and Higgins in the centre.

Up front, the partnership of Danny North and Kavanagh continued to look impressive and while the pace of it all made the occasional wayward pass fairly inevitable, both sides managed to string together some impressive passing moves, particularly the hosts, who kept poking and prodding at the visitors’ back four at every opportunity.

Their equalising goal, on the stroke of half-time, was an altogether more simple affair however, with Harney picking out North with an early angled ball and with the entire City defence looking on as the striker pushed the ball past goalkeeper Ger Doherty unchallenged from 12 yards.

Doherty, who flew back in from Rome for the match after getting married on Wednesday, kept his side in things more than once, saving from North, Anto Murphy and Doyle.

It was impressive stuff from a team unbeaten in nine in the league and yet their push for a winner left them looking decidedly fragile at times at the back.

Had Zayed, the league’s top scorer, been in more ruthless form he could have had at least a couple here but he passed up another free header midway through the second half after which Danny Laferty curled a fine long range free onto the post following a foul by Bradley on Gareth McGlynn.

By this stage it was really enthralling stuff with both sides clearly reluctant, even in the dying minutes to settle for a draw they must have sensed was going to leave them five points adrift of the leaders. In the end, though, they simply had no choice.

ST PATRICK’S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Harney (Keegan, 90 mins), E McMillan, Shorthall, Bermingham; Murphy, Mulcahy, Bradley, Doyle; Kavanagh, North.

DERRY CITY: Doherty; Molloy, Greacen, S McEleney, Lafferty; McGlynn, Deery, Higgins, McLaughlin; Zayed, P McEleney (Harkin, 62 mins).

Referee: A Kelly (Cork).