Patrick Hoban and Daniel Cleary help Dundalk scramble a point from 10-man Waterford
Dundalk’s title challenge might be hanging on by a thread but late headers from Patrick Hoban and Daniel Cleary at least showed there is still some fight in the Louth men heading into their Champions League campaign on Wednesday.
The pair both turned in Sean Murray corners in the dying minutes at Oriel Park on Friday night after Waterford FC had been reduced to 10 men to rescue what looked like the most unlikely of draws.
Goals from Matthew Smith and Kurtis Byrne looked like giving the visitors their first away win at Oriel since 2003 but a late fightback after Ali Coote was dismissed with 12 minutes to go ensured the home side escaped with a point.
While a third game without victory since the restart means the champions could be 10 points behind Shamrock Rovers by the end of the weekend, the fightback shown will at least give manager Vinny Perth some hope ahead of his side’s trip to Hungary for Wednesday’s Champions League first qualifying round tie with Slovenian champions NK Celje.
Despite a sluggish start, the hosts had the first couple of chances in the game with top scorer Patrick Hoban flashing a shot just wide of Brian Murphy’s post on five minutes before the goalkeeper was called into action to save a drilled effort from Chris Shields on 23 minutes.
Within a minute Waterford had the lead with their first shot of the game. Daniel Cleary, Sean Gannon, and John Mountney were all drawn to Tyreke Wilson at the edge of the box but he somehow managed to slip Smith in. Smith cut inside Sean Hoare to slot past Gary Rogers.
Still trailing at the break, Perth made a triple change at the start of the second half with recent recruits Nathan Oduwa, Joshua Gatt, and David McMillan brought on as the home side opted for a 3-4-2-1 formation.
Whatever plans Dundalk had quickly unravelled, however, on 50 minutes when the Blues doubled their lead. A sloppy pass was picked up on by Byrne who made no mistake to fire to the bottom left hand corner.
That goal was a hammer blow to the Louth men but they were given some hope on 78 minutes when Waterford were reduced to 10 men after Coote picked up a second yellow card for a late challenge on substitute Will Patching.
That lifeline looked like it would emerge when Hoban rose to meet Murray’s corner to make it 2-1 with seven minutes left.
Then up popped Cleary in the 91st minute as he flicked on Murray’s corner with the effort creeping through the legs of Ryan.
Dundalk could have won it after that with Cleary rattling the crossbar with a header from another Murray delivery before Ryan pulled off a brilliant follow up save to deny Sean Gannon.
Rogers; Gannon, Cleary, Hoare, Massey (Oduwa HT); Shields, Mountney (Murray 27); Colovic (Gatt HT), McEleney (Patching 70), Duffy (McMillan HT); Hoban.
B Murphy (Ryan 43); Bone, Davidson, McCourt; Sobowale, Coote, Weir, Wilson, Smith; Byrne (Fitzgerald 82), O’Connor.
Ray Matthews (Westmeath).
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