Drogheda Utd 4 Waterford Utd 0: Drogheda United returned to the top of the Premier Division table with this emphatic victory over bottom-of-the-table Waterford at United Park last evening, finally ending their sequence of single goal victories thanks mainly to a hat-trick from striker Declan O'Brien.
Drogheda took the game to the visitors straight from the off and but for Patrick Flynn intercepting a O'Brien cross after four minutes Keith Fahy would have opened their account. Minutes later O'Brien again created the chance for Fahy who saw his first shot beaten away by goalkeeper Jimmy Fyffe who also pushed Fahy's follow up to safety.
Drogheda hit the front with quarter of an hour gone when Graham Gartland was held by Chris Deans and referee Hugo Whoriskey pointed to the spot. O'Brien drilled the ball to the left corner of the net off Fyffe's hand.
Daryl Kavanagh's 15-yard volley almost got Waterford back into the game with 21 minutes gone but the ball flew narrowly wide.
Drogheda struck for a second time just short of the half hour mark when Barrett passed to O'Brien who finished for his seventh goal of the season. The home side should have been out of sight before the break as they created several goal chances.
Four minutes from half-time O'Brien should have had his hat-trick when he beat the visitors' offside trap but with only Fyffe to beat he shot straight at the goalkeeper. In added time Robinson broke away on the right and shot across the face of goal - had he looked to his left Shane Barrett and Gavin Whelan were free and better placed to score.
The second half continued in the same vein as the first as Drogheda dominated proceedings, the only surprise being they failed to add substantially to their goal tally. Nine minutes into the second half Bradley played a sublime pass through to Robinson who was denied by Fyffe's wonder stop. But there was little the goalkeeper could do to prevent O'Brien claiming his third goal on 69 minutes when Sami Ristila sent the striker through the centre of the Waterford defence to slide his shot cooly past Fyffe.
Drogheda, now rampant, toyed with their opponents in the closing stages as Glen Fitzpatrick, Ristila and Fahy were all denied by Fyffe who was primarily responsible for keeping the scoreline respectable from the losers' perspective. Inevitably that fourth Drogheda goal arrived in injury time when Fitzpatrick raced onto Fahy's cross from the left to head home.
DROGHEDA UNITED: Connor; Webb, Gavin, Gartland, Robinson, Whelan (Lynch 68), O'Brien (Fitzpatrick 74), Fahy, Shelley, Bradley, Barrett (Ristila 66).
WATERFORD UNITED: Fyffe; Flynn, Hughes, Deans, Browne, Hayes, McCarthy, Chambers (Ometeso 62), Doyle, Fraher, Kavanagh.
Referee: H Whoriskey (Meath).
