St Pat’s and Longford Town share spoils after six-goal Richmond cracker
Longford had the ball in the Pat’s net on 11 minutes when Lee Duffy hooked a wonderful looping effort past Pat’s goalkeeper Brendan Clarke but was flagged offside. .
Longford pressed on and were awarded a free kick just outside the penalty area on 24 minutes after Darren Dennehy’s raised arm blocked David O’Sullivan’s shot. Philip Gannon’s free was blocked by the Pat’s wall as was the follow up effort from Lee Duffy.
Longford played some good football as the half continued and a good period of play came around the half hour mark. On 32 minutes Simon made a darting run on goal and it took the late intervention of Dennehy to prevent Simon getting his shot on target.
Pat’s had been playing second fiddle to Longford for long spells and their first real chance came on 37 minutes with a snap shot from Jamie McGrath but the strike went narrowly over. The home side then suffered a blow on 40 minutes when Ian Bermingham limped off. He had taken a knock about five minutes beforehand but was unable to shake it off and was replaced by Lee Desmond.
It remained scoreless at the break but few in the crowd of just 932 in Inchicore could have expected the end to end action and brilliant goals that they were to be treated to.
Town took the lead just over 30 second into the second-half when O’Sullivan pulled the ball back on the goal line and teed up Gannon, whose shot from the edge of the box coasted past Clarke. But the lead lasted only three minutes before Pat’s equalised on 49 minutes. Sam Verdon climbed high at the back post and headed in powerfully from Billy Dennehy’s corner to get Pat’s right back in it.
But the home side found themselves behind again on 63 minutes. On the break, Conor Powell made a brilliant run from inside his own half and got on the end of a Kevin O’Connor pass before curling an inch-perfect shot into the bottom left corner.
Pat’s fought back and the woodwork denied Mark Timlin on 71 minutes after Lee Desmond’s initial shot had been repelled by the Town defence but the home side were level two minutes later. Sub Conan Byrne met Ger O’Brien’s pass and flashed a low drive past the diving Ian Molloy.
O’Sullivan scored from the spot on 87 minutes after Darren Dennehy took down Simon in the box. Dennehy got a second yellow and was dismissed but O’Sullivan’s penalty struck the crossbar. Referee Harvey ordered it to be retaken due to encroachment and this time O’Sullivan made no mistake. Pat’s then went back up the other end from the restart and McGrath slammed in the equaliser on 89.
Clarke; O’Brien, Hoare, D Dennehy, Bermingham (Desmond 40 mins); Cawley (Byrne 71 mins); Timlin, McEleney (Tracey h/t), Verdon, B Dennehy; McGrath.
Molloy; J Mulhall, Flynn, Rossiter, Noack-Hofmann, Powell; Gannon, O’Connor (Dillon 76 mins), Simon, Duffy (O’Hanlon 55 mins); O’Sullivan.
Robert Harvey (Dublin)
