Dundalk 2 - 4 Sligo Rovers

• Emmet Maloney
• Sat, Oct 09 2010


Gary McCabe was a pivotal and controversial figure in this game as he set up one goal, won a penalty and had a large hand in seeing Dundalk left back Wayne Hatswell seeing the red card on 39 minutes. Goals for Sligo from Matthew Blinkhorn, Richie Ryan, Alan Keane and Joe Ndo with a consolation brace from Ross Gaynor saw the Bit O’ Red achieve a 4-2 victory.

Sligo opened the scoring on 12 minutes as a wayward Faz Kudozovic pass ended at Matthew Blinkhorn’s feet, the striker played it wide right to McCabe who played it back in to the Englishman who left Garry Breen sitting on his posterior before finishing easily past a seriously exposed Peter Cherrie.

Dundalk got back into the match on 26 minutes as Tom Miller launched one of his now deadly long throws into the Sligo box. Faz Kudozovic got his head to it, the ball then fell to Hatswell who headed it back into the mixer where Ross Gaynor bicycle kicked it gently over John Gibson and into the back of the Sligo net.

On 39 minutes Wayne Hatswell got his marching orders as the slightest of contact with MCabe saw the Sligo man go to ground and ref Tom Connolly reached for his pocket, an action that he repeated with monotonous regularity for the duration of the match. Direct from the resulting free kick Joe Ndo slipped the ball across the park to the oncoming Richie Ryan who found the top corner from around 20 yards with Peter Cherrie rooted to the spot.

Dundalk would have wanted to start the second half in positive fashion and equalised on 55 minutes as Ross Gaynor curled a free from the wide right side around the wall and into the near post of Gibson’s net after spotting the keeper too far across his goal line.

The Dundalk relief was short lived as immediately Sligo made inroads down their right, McCabe went down after touching the ball around Garry Breen and the penalty was duly awarded. If there is one man in the league who knows how to take a penalty it is Alan Keane and he converted with ease.

The afternoon got even worse for the Co Louth boys as stand in centre half Tom Miller was caught in possession by Ndo, who one on one with Cherrie had no trouble at all finding the bottom corner to make the score 4-2.

In fairness to Dundalk they huffed and puffed but were never going to blow this particular house down and Sligo used the space afforded them to play keep ball and in all reality saw out time with no great scares.

UCD host both of these teams next up and Sligo will be hoping that they can maintain their push for Europe. For Dundalk they now have to set their sights on Sporting Fingal in their attempts to finish as high up the league as possible.

Dundalk: Peter Cherrie; Simon Madden, Liam Burns, Garry Breen (Stephen Maher 61), Wayne Hatswell; Daniel Kearns, Tom Miller, Dean Bennett, Ross Gaynor; Matthew Tipton, Fahrudin Kudozovic.
Subs not used: Paul Murphy, Shaun Kelly, Steven Lennon, Johnny Breen

Sligo Rovers: John Gibson; Alan Keane, Iarflaith Davoren, Gavin Peers, Jim Lauchlan; Gary McCabe (Danny Ventre 83), Joseph Ndo, Richie Ryan, John Dillon (Conor O’Grady 71) Eoin Doyle; Matthew Blinkhorn (Mark McGoldrick 81) .
Subs not used: Ciaran Kelly, Derek Foran, Mark McGoldrick

extratime.ie Man of the Match: Gary McCabe.

Referee: Tom Connolly

Attendance: 1500.