The State of Play (First Division)

After last weekend’s fixtures, Dundalk find themselves in a fine position at the top of the table having stretched their lead over the chasing trio to six points. Of the chasing group, Shelbourne were the happier with another resounding victory as they look to turn around a miserable middle third of their season. Waterford had looked strong going into the weekend, however, couldn’t get the win against the league leaders that would have squashed up the top of the table, again. Sporting are the side slipping away of late; fixtures against Waterford and Dundalk in recent memory, and an upcoming home game against Shelbourne, meant their game at Station Road in Kildare was a massive one, and one which they could only earn a draw.

One win for the sides in the bottom half of the table reflects both the gap in quality, and a difficult week of fixtures. Kildare and Wexford scored four points between them but stay bottom, with the gap between 10th and 5th, closer than 5th and 4th. The fans of the four runaway sides must now be worrying that they may well be the 9/10 that will remain in the league, rather than the 1/10 who will escape, even Dundalk fans, given their recent history in throwing away points.

Dundalk’s victory was massive. We at extratime.ie are consistently amazed at the performances by a Waterford United side that seems destined to fail, but is willing to fight it out to the last. Since July, Dundalk have been pretty lethal, unbeaten in the league, notching up five wins in seven. However Waterford posed a real threat. Dundalk had stumbled in their three previous ‘top four’ fixtures, failing to turn over Sporting Fingal or Shelbourne, and before that losing away to last Thursdays counterparts, so the pressure was on here to put distance over the pack. Waterford, as financially crippled as a Thai leader in a Mancunian casino, had also been on quite the run and not much money was backed against them.

Paul Crowley gave the Lilywhites the ideal start however Luke Fitzpatrick’s immediate reply looked set to again surprise the naysayers. Crowley’s second was enough to steer the hosts to another league win, consigning Waterford to their first league loss since May.

At Tolka Park, twenty four hours later, Shelbourne knew they needed a win just to keep sight of Dundalk’s coat tails. By the way, we at extratime.ie have an image in our heads of every club. Dundalk’s image has very prominent coat tails. New signings Darren Forsyth and David McAllister each banged in a brace within fourteen playing minutes. Robbie Hedderman added a fifth a few minutes later to send Longford Town back out of Dublin heavily spanked and in need of some much needed telling off. Longford stay fourth bottom, Shelbourne stay chasing.

Sporting Fingal, similarly knowledgeable of the need to chase, faced the ever lowly Kildare County at Station Road. What should have been an easy away win turned out to be a battled draw. Craig Mooney’s strike right on half time shook the high flying Santry side, who had to rely on a Conan Byrne strike twenty minutes from time to save their blushes. Kildare regain their hard fought residency of bottom place, Sporting drop to fourth.

Wexford Youths won away at Monaghan United to rise above Kildare, with goals from Paul Murphy and Chris Kenny proving too much for the hosts, whose late reply from Andy Horan was not enough, in what proved to be an entertaining second half. Monaghan had won their three previous league matches, which included a stellar 2-0 win over Shelbourne. However just as they had caught Limerick in the nomadic fifth spot in the league, alas they had lost them.

In the last of the round of fixtures, Limerick 37 enjoyed a very comfortable win at Athlone Town, thanks to two strikes from John Tierney and one from David Ryan. Limerick are doing a very good job at maintaining their mid table safety. Beating all below and dropping points to all above. Six points from a possible thirty from the four sides above compared to twenty five points from the forty two available against sides below them perhaps shows just how big the difference is between the top and the bottom in the First Division.

Next week’s fixtures:

29 Aug, 19:45. Limerick 37 v Dundalk Jackman Park
29 Aug, 19:45. Sporting Fingal v Shelbourne Morton Stadium
29 Aug, 19:45. Waterford United v Kildare County Regional Sports Centre
29 Aug, 20:00. Wexford Youths v Athlone Town Football Complex
30 Aug, 19:30. Longford Town v Monaghan United Flancare Park