League Report: Dundalk FC 1 - 0 Bray Wanderers

There may have been calls for streets to be named after this Dundalk squad during the week, but the champions weren’t streets ahead of Bray tonight. A solitary goal from captain Andy Boyle made the difference in this midweek clash at Oriel Park.

The 1-0 win keeps Dundalk atop the table with a four point cushion and leaves Bray staring into a familiar relegation position despite early season hype.

In the opening phases, Dundalk dominated possession but to Bray’s credit they worked well and restricted the Lilywhites. That is until Dundalk nosed in front after twenty minutes, through a headed captain’s goal from Andy Boyle following a free kick:

Sean Harding barged into Chris Shields and gave away a free kick in an innocuous looking position, it was hit short by Daryl Horgan to Ronan Finn who floated a weighted ball into the visitor’s box. The Bray defence were so preoccupied with Brian Gartland shaping up to connect, that Boyle found himself with a free run at the ball to nod it across the face of goal and past the hapless Peter Cherrie.

Straight after the restart, Cherrie had to work to deny Dundalk a second, a low drive from former Seagull, Chris Shields, looked destined for the bottom corner of the net but it was well saved.

In glimpses, Bray reminded Dundalk that they could be dangerous. Particularly on the counter attack. After a particularly barren spell, Sean Harding flashed a 38^th minute effort just over that reminded both Gary Rogers and the Oriel crowd on their toes.

Striker McMillan was a toe poke away from making it 2-0 when he couldn’t capitalise on the run and cross of Horgan and Finn. He clumped an effort wide from hardly six yards. Yet he had the ball in the net three minutes later from a vastly more difficult opportunity, when he converted a Mountney pass with a lob on the turn, only for the linesman to deem him offside.

Harding earned himself a yellow just before the break, for a foul on Finn as he sought to stifle a Dundalk break before it began. He bundled into the back of Ronan Finn. It was the only blot in Bray’s copybook as they worked tirelessly to maintain the champions and kept it at 1-0 going into the break.

With Dundalk failing to carve out many clear chances when they appeared to be in the ascendancy, the game got very ragged and even nervy from a Lilywhite perspective as Bray started to get a foothold in the game on the hour mark.

The Seasider’s best opportunity of the game came via a game of Ping-Pong in the home side’s box induced by substitute, Ryan Brennan’s, cross which required some quick reflexes from Gary Rogers to maintain his clean sheet.

McMillan came close again to getting on the scoresheet at the other end, when he looked to get on the end of Daryl Horgan’s sublime cross but this time it was the Bray ‘keeper’s heroics to the rescue - Cherrie got enough purchase on it with his punched clearance to clear his lines.

Bray were not going down without a fight, particularly since Dundalk weren’t quite as infallible as their display over the first hour.

With ten minutes remaining, Dean Kelly watched his shot sail over and graze the topside of the bar. Then the Louth crowd were made sweat on the full time whistle when Kelly lined up a dangerous free kick with second of normal time remaining, only for his effort to strike the wall and allow Dundalk to start an injury time attempt of their own.  

You get the feeling sometimes that such is the expectation for Dundalk to win (particularly against a team the beat 8-1 in this fixture last year) that their defensive efforts can get overlooked. To a man, Dundalk worked incredibly hard and dug in when they had to.

Andy Boyle was nearly odds on for man of the match had the second half continued in the same vein as the first. He was calm, collected and notched an important goal going forward. The home side’s serenity was tested somewhat more in the latter exchanges and while Boyle was certainly effective (as was Brian Gartland) in limiting Bray’s attempts to release Pender and Kelly, increasingly the robust tackles of Chris Shields were needed to recycle possession and nip dangerous moves in the bud.

Bray can take solace from this performance even if they have slipped a place further to the bottom, they didn’t look like relegation candidates here as they tested Dundalk in phases. Despite some great passages of play from Dundalk, the nervy ending ensured that Stephen Kenny will be pleased he didn’t have to share the spoils tonight.

Dundalk FC: Gary Rogers, Sean Gannon, Brian Gartland, Andy Boyle, Dane Massey, Chris Shields, Ronan Finn, Robbie Benson (Daren Meenan 68), Daryl Horgan, John Mountney (Paddy Barrett 80), David McMillan.

Subs not used: Gabriel Sava, Shane Grimes, Georgie Poynton, Anton Reilly, Keith Dalton.

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

Bray Wanderers: Peter Cherrie, Conor Kenna, Alan McNally, Sean Harding (Gareth McDonagh 74), Robbie Creevy, Mark Salmon, Dylan Conolly, Karl Moore, Jason Marks (Ryan Brennan 69), Ger Pender (Dean Kelly 69), Hugh Douglas.

Subs not used: Andrey Lewis, Darragh Noone, Alan Byrne, Aaron Shanahan

Booked: Sean Harding 45+1

Sent Off: None

Referee: Dereck Tomney

Attendance: 1,940

ExtraTime.ie Man of the Match: Chris Shields (Dundalk FC)

You can see Larry McQuillan's photos from the game here.