While Cork City finally unearthed the secret to beating St Patrick's Athletic on Saturday afternoon at Turner's Cross, Galway United were breaking new ground of their own at Belfield Park on Sunday, registering their first win of their Premier Division campaign against UCD.

Despite the conditions the game produced an interesting enough contest for the couple of 100 supporters who made it along. It was a strange sort of occasion, though, for since the Dubliners decided to dispense with the services of outside players some years ago and rely on their own scholarship system they have rarely gone into a game, as they did on Sunday, as by far the more experienced of the two competing teams.

Over the summer the management team at Belfield successfully retained every one of their senior players and decided then to strengthen their panel by bringing in a couple of outsiders in the form of Peter Hanrahan (well, hardly an outsider) and Brian Mooney.

With Ciaran Kavanagh and Mick O'Byrne in there too and just about every one of the other players having at least a full season of first team football at this level behind them, the nature of the Dublin club's panel is changing noticeably and the slightly more mature approach was evident in a game that they dominated for just about all of the first half and good stretches of the second.

Afterwards in the UCD camp, the defeat was being put down in large measure to the refereeing of Paul McKeon who showed seven UCD players cards, sent off Ciaran Martyn for a second bookable offence halfway through the first period and set Galway on their way to the three points by awarding a penalty before the first minute was out.

Martyn, though, could have no real complaint about his dismissal and given that it was McKeon's linesman who persuaded the referee to give the spot-kick, the home side's basic gripe seemed to be that, having sent Clive Delaney off during last Tuesday's match against Bray, the official was again more than a little one-sided in his approach to the disciplinary side of the game.

In fact, the Dubliners might still have got something out of the game for they created by far the better chances during the opening hour while at the back, where Delaney was superb, they scarcely allowed United a half decent attempt on goal during that time.

On another day, Hanrahan might well have had a hat-trick, but on Sunday it became entirely clear he wasn't going to find the net even if left out there by himself for a while after the final whistle. In the 72nd minute, his attempt to turn home a wonderful cross from Mooney ended up against all the odds, in the arms of Eddie Hickey.

Theo Dunne admitted afterwards that he knew at that point that it hadn't been his day and it looked, by the way they picked up their game from then on, as if the visiting players knew it too.

A week earlier Galway had, to use Don O'Riordan's phrase, "been taught a bit of a lesson" by Cork City, but a hectic week's training followed by the purchase of a powerful ghetto blaster and some dance music for the dressing-room at Belfield seemed to pick them up nicely.

The music was the idea of injured goalkeeper Nick Flowers, but O'Riordan said that it was a tactic he employed briefly at Torquay until they travelled to Wimbledon for a cup game and discovered the demoralising effect that coming off second best in the stereo stakes can have.

O'Riordan knows that it's going to take more than loud music to keep his young United side out of the relegation zone this season, but the Galway manager, like his players, learns fast and is clearly willing to work hard - attributes that will go a long way towards helping them stay up.

On Sunday, the hunger to win was obvious from the workrate of the visitors and O'Riordan's advice to Adrian Cregg, that he should simply relax a little when teeing up his chances, after he had rushed the couple of shooting opportunities that came his way, was put to good use by the 20-year-old who found the net sweetly a few minutes from time after UCD's 10 men had finally run out of steam.

There were weaknesses, too, with United's front pair rarely causing Delaney or Aidan Lynch any serious concern while some of the passing around the centre was far too rushed. While "we realise that we have our shortcomings," said the Galway boss, "we're prepared to make up for them with sheer hard work."

The team could do with another player or two and some further squad-strengthening is expected over the coming months, but for the moment United's youngsters are showing positive signs of coming to terms with the major step up in class they have made over the summer months.

Cash strapped Limerick FC have sent chairman Fr Joe Young on a fund-raising mission in the United States. There is serious concern at Hogan Park at the shortage of money and insiders say the club's future could depend on the response to the chairman's appeal. Manager Tommy Lynch had already been told to cut expenses and to off-load his out of town players.