- Christopher Davey
- Sun, Apr 20 2008
Sligo manager Paul Cook chose to stick with the starting team that recorded a landmark result in Derry last week. Fahrudin Kudozovic returned to the bench after his hamstring injury, whilst Sean Doherty, Gary Curran, and Pat Jennings were all ruled out through injury.
For Galway, caretaker manager Billy Clery replaced Ciaran Foley, Derek Glynn and Alan Keane with Derek O'Brien, Ollie Fenn and Stephen O'Flynn, who made his first start of the season this evening. Galway were in search of their first win of the season, while Rovers were looking to build on their recent good form.
It was Sligo who took the upper hand in the opening exchanges, with Regi Nooitmeer denying Romauld Boco twice early on the game with good challenges. Steve Feeney will also feel unfortunate not to have done better from Alan Moore's cross. He scuffed the ball wide from what was, in truth, only a half chance in front of the Galway goal.
The first sending off of the evening came Paul Cook's way as he was banished for what was deemed to be 'aggressive behaviour'. After this, though, Galway pushed on, and Marc McCulloch, Derek O'Brien, and Stephen O'Flynn all had chances to score for Galway. None of these however tested Richard Brush in the Sligo goal.
The best effort of the first half was compliments of Steve Feeney, who connected with a fine header from Gavin Peers' cross. The header was heading just under the crossbar but for the heroics of Gary Rogers in the Galway goal who denied Feeney with an acrobatic save to keep the game scoreless in the first half.
The second half began as the first ended, until the introduction of Fahrudin Kudozovic and Rafael Cretaro to the action. Within ten minutes of Kudozovic taking to the field of play, he had the ball in the back of the United net.
After some trojan work by Coleman down the right hand side, he fed the ball to Kudozovic. Kudozovic twisted and turned about 25 yards out until he had a clear shot at goal. He transferred the ball from his left to his right, and let fly. The ball bounced off of the right hand post and went across the goal, hitting the net via the inside of the left post for his first league goal of the season.
There was a brief response by Galway, with Derek O'Brien being denied an attacking opportunity in the Sligo box thanks to a fantastic challenge by Coleman. Mark Leech also spurned an opportunity, failing to hit the target after linking onto a header at the back post by Wes Charles.
From here onwards however, it was all Sligo Rovers. Man of the match Seamus Coleman made a jinky run from the right, passing several players along the way. He made it fully across the Galway box, and shot with power. Unluckily, it was not to be for Coleman, whose shot drifted past the right hand post.
Anto Murphy, the final Rovers substitute, also had an influential bearing on the game. His long throw in was met by the head of Raf Cretaro in the Galway box. Cretaro's header lobbed Rogers in the United goal, and just dipped under the Galway crossbar to put Rovers 2-0 up.
The action was not finished yet though, and on the 81st minute the night's second sending off came when Wes Charles took down Murphy from behind in the Galway area and was given a straight red. To further compound Galway's woes for the evening, Kudozovic dispatched the penalty to Roger's right to leave the score at 3-0 for the night.
Sligo Rovers: Richard Brush; Seamus Coleman, Gavin Peers, Mauro Almedia, Chris Butler; Alan Moore (Raffaele Cretaro 55), Conor O'Grady, Danny Ventre, Brian Cash (Anto Murphy 68); Romauld Boco, Steve Feeney (Fahrudin Kuduzovic 51).
Subs not used: Jamie McKenzie, Matthew Judge.
Galway United: Gary Rogers; Reg Nooitmeer, Wes Charles, John Fitzgerald, Marc McCulloch; Gary Deegan (Cian McBrien 86), Ollie Fenn, John Lester (Jason Molloy 76), Derek O'Brien; Mark Leech, Stephen O'Flynn (Derek Glynn 76).
Subs not used: Seamus Conneely, Alan Keane.
Sent Off: Charles (80).
Referee: Dave McKeon.
Attendance: 2,000 (estimate)
