Hat-trick from terror Towell eases Lilywhites past Galway challenge

Dundalk 3 Galway Utd 0

Stephen Kenny’s champions struggled to break down the visitors in the first half with Tommy Dunne’s side arguably having the best opening when Padraic Cunningham had the ball in the net on 33 minutes only to see it ruled out by referee Paul McLaughlin for a foul on goalkeeper Gabriel Sava.

The Louth men were gifted an opener three minutes after the restart, however, when Towell dispatched a penalty to the bottom left hand corner after David McMillan had been fouled by Kevin Garcia after racing onto Ronan Finn’s through ball.

Within two minutes Towell had doubled his side’s advantage, firing home from Sean Gannon’s pull back from the right.

The midfielder then completed his hat-trick in the 61st minute when he latched onto a pass from McMillan on the right to send a beautiful curling shot around Ger Hanley to the far right hand corner of the net for his seventh league goal of the season.

Dundalk: Sava; Gannon, Gartland (Barrett 63), Boyle, Massey; Meenan, Shields, Towell, Horgan; Finn (O’Donnell 78); McMillan (Mountney 76).

Galway Utd: Hanley; Horgan, Garcia, Walsh, Ludden (Oji 56); Shanahan, O’Leary (Byrne 69), Connolly, Keegan; Curran (O’Laoi 73), Cunningham.

Referee: P McLaughlin (Monaghan).