LEAGUE OF IRELAND/Dundalk 0 St Patrick's Athletic 0:IT SHOULD be mid-July by the time Pete Mahon and his players pass this way again, but if the 2,700 who came along to Oriel Park could be assured of anything like the second half they got last night, it's unlikely many of them would willingly stay away.

Both sides came into the game riding a strong run of early results, but the home side looked the more likely to maintain that form early on. Ian Foster’s men pushed the ball about with more confidence and purpose than their visitors.

Over the course of the night, however, the visitors did comfortably enough to earn their point and, with it, to stay fractionally ahead of Bohemians at the top of the table.

As he had last week at Tallaght, Foster played with five men across the middle, and initially that paid dividends with the locals having the better of things in midfield where they won a good deal of possession and generally used it well.

Up front, though, Neale Fenn looked a little isolated against a defence that has yet to concede this season.

While the hosts managed to generate a handful of half-chances over the opening period, there was little to concern goalkeeper Gary Rogers aside from a low JJ Melligan cross that Derek Pender scrambled away after Rogers failed to cut it out at his near post.

At the other end, Alex Williams had a couple of opportunities to mark his return to Oriel Park by scoring, or at least creating, a goal against the run of play. When Vinny Faherty picked him out with a fine cross-field ball, though, the striker rushed a shot rather than cut inside and work his way in towards the box.

And while he could scarcely have been closer to the target when Liam Burns played Peter Cherrie into trouble two minutes before the break and the striker blocked the goalkeeper’s attempt to clear, both his luck and footing were to desert him with the ball running back to Burns who dealt with things more effectively at the second attempt.

The Dubliners picked their game up after the interval and the match became far more open and entertaining. The talking point of the first half had been referee Anthony Buttimer’s decision not to either send Dave Mulcahy off for what looked a two-footed challenge on Shaun Kelly, or to book the midfielder again not long after for what might, at more of a stretch, have been considered a body check on Stephen Maher.

As the game wore on, however, both defences opened a little and there were a handful decent chances for either side to nudge in front.

St Patrick’s looked consistently threatening from set-pieces with Ian Bermingham twice finding Conor Kenna deep inside area.

On the first occasion, the centre-back’s flick was nearly turned into his net by Gary Breen, while the second time around the former UCD defender forced a smart save by Cherrie.

The hosts, though, showed they could make decent use of a dead ball at times themselves. When Wayne Hatswell was brought down after making it almost to the edge of the area 10 minutes from time, JJ Melligan floated in a free that the left back headed straight into the goalkeeper’s arms when a goal looked certain.

Moments later Hatswell narrowly missed the target after again shaking off his marker to get on the end of a Melligan corner.

By that stage it was pretty much end-to-end stuff and the crowd seemed transfixed as Dundalk threatened to grab the lead one moment and then, the next, throw away the point.

Mahon will wonder how Williams didn’t score late on when Conor Sinnott and Faherty linked up to send him racing clear into the area, but Cherrie stood up and his save must have gone a long way towards earning him his man of the match award.

The former Bohemians boss, of course, must have been relieved, too, when his side didn’t concede in the dying seconds amid a bit of chaos around the area. Having gone close twice through Fahrudin Kuduzovic, however, the locals simply couldn’t find the required finish.

So the sides go their separate ways for the moment, with their precious unbeaten records intact.

DUNDALK: Cherrie; Kelly, Burns, Breen, Hatswell; Kuduzovic, Melligan, Maher, Miller, Gaynor; Fenn.

ST PATRICK’S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Pender, Guthrie, Kenna, Bermingham; McAllister (Sinnott, 83 mins), Mulcahy, S Byrne, Guy; Williams (P Byrne, 90 mins), Faherty.

Referee: A Buttimer (Cork).