St Pat's title hopes fade after another draw

St Patrick's Athletic 1 UCD 1

Alan Kirby salvaged a point for St Pat's, but their title challenge is now hanging by a thread after a third league draw on the spin.

Saints now trail Drogheda by five points with a game more played and face the leaders at United Park on Friday in a game you feel they must win if they are to prevent the Boynesiders from going on to win the first title in their history.

Trailing to Derek Doyle's first-half opener, misfiring Saints finally hit back on 67 minutes.

Mark Quigley dummied Keith Fahey's ball into the path of Kirby who showed good feet before toeing his shot past Darren Quigley.

Both sides had chances to win it late on, the pick of them falling to St Pat's Anto Murphy whose powerful header from John Frost's corner was brilliantly saved by Quigley.

St Pat's enjoyed all the possession in the first half but their inability to create much was clinically punished at the other end as UCD scored from their first chance on 25 minutes.

Doyle stole in from the left wing and galloped straight through the static St Pat's defence onto Brian King's pass before calmly shooting past Barry Ryan for his fourth goal of the season.