Drogheda United 1 - 4 St. Patrick's Athletic

St Pats ran out comfortable winners at Hunky Dorys Park as four second half goals saw them take the points and continue their push for honours. Efforts from Daryl Kavanagh, Anto Murphy, Derek Doyle and a finisher from Ian Daly were more than enough to see them past Drogheda who had equalised earlier through Dinny Corcoran.

Dinny Corcoran should have opened the scoring as Dave Mulcahy tried to find Gary Rogers in the Pats goal with a back header, however it wasn’t very well directed and allowed Corcoran to get between Rogers and the ball but he couldn’t find the net from the acute angle.

Danny North has been in fine goal scoring form and was full of confidence, always wanting to be involved resulting in a series of dangerous crosses and a couple of shots that unfortunately lacked the direction to really trouble Steven Trimble in the home goal.

Pats threatened a couple of times around the half hour mark as first a North cross from the left was eventually put behind for a corner. Four minutes later North sent in Bermingham who’s far post cross was hit back across goal and cleared. On 39 minutes North came even closer when his header struck the angle of post and bar from a couple of yards.

The second half opened in wonderful fashion as first Pats opened the scoring through Daryl Kavanagh on 47 minutes after good work by Derek Doyle and Ian Bermingham had opened up the Drogs rearguard. Drogheda struck back immediately as Philip Hand and Tiarnan Mulvenna combined for the former to cross to Dinny Corcoran who worked space on the edge of the box beautifully to curl his effort past Gary Rogers from the edge of the box.

That was the high water mark for Drogheda as Pats tore the home team to pieces with two goals in four minutes. First a Stephen Bradley free from around 30 yards got the slightest of touches from the head of Anto Murphy to find the far corner of the net on 71 minutes. The shellshocked Drogs were stung further on 74 minutes when Murphy crossed to the far post Danny North headed back across goal and Derek Doyle headed home from 6 yards.

At this point Drogs were clinging on in the game but it got worse before the end for them. On 86 minutes North picked up a ball in his own half, he ran Victor Ekanem to the edge of the box turned and crossed to Ian Daly who had time to pick his spot in the bottom left hand corner.

Pats still had time to hit the post through Bradley and Drogs were glad to get in to the changing rooms by the time the final whistle went. An inviting trip to Galway awaits Pats and a 6 pointer here at Hunky Dorys Park is next up for the Drogs.

Drogheda United: Steven Trimble; Mark Nolan (Darragh Hanaphy 80), Alan McNally, Victor Ekanem, Philip Hand; Mark O’Brien, Brian Gannon, Stephen Quigley, David Freeman (Darragh McNamara 76); Dinny Corcoran, Tiarnan Mulvenna.
Subs not used: Aaron Shanahan, Stephen McCrossan, Colin O’Brien, Robbie Gaul, Keith Murray.
Bookings: S Quigley (27), Nolan (35), Ekanem (70).

St Patricks Athletic: Gary Rogers; Neil Harney, Evan McMilan, David Mulcahy (Anthony Murphy 68), Ian Bermingham (Jake Carroll 64); Stephen Bradley, Shane McFaul (Paul Crowley 76), Derek Doyle, Daryl Kavanagh; Ian Daly, Daniel North.
Subs not used: Chris Bennion, David McMillan, Sean Stewart, Jordan Keegan.
Bookings: None.

Referee: Paul Tuite.
Attendance: 1,000 (estimate).
extratime.ie Man of the Match: Danny North (St Patrick's Ath).