St Pats re-ignite title charge with big win over Galway
THREE CHEERS: St Patrick's Athletic manager Stephen Kenny celebrates. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
Regaining their goal touch, St Patrick’s Athletic blew Galway United away at Richmond Park to re-ignite their title challenge.
Dominant from the start, Stephen Kenny’s Saints raced into their match winning 3-0 lead inside 24 minutes with goals from Ryan Edmondson, Kian Leavy and Aidan Keena - a stunned Galway manager John Caulfield making a triple substitution minutes later.
The result saw St Pat’s bounce back emphatically from last week’s 2-0 defeat at Bohemians, though wins for the latter and Shamrock Rovers coming from behind in Sligo means it's as you where at the top.
It proved a night to forget for seventh-placed Galway, compounded by Waterford's win at Derry City meaning they are now four points off the bottom.
As expected, Hugo Da Cunha made his league debut in goal for Galway with county GAA netminder Connor Gleeson on the bench.
And the Portuguese keeper was in action inside two minutes, getting down well to smother at the feet of Keena after a mistake by Wasiri Williams had gifted possession to Jay McClelland.
But it was Galway who should have taken the lead just a minute later in a lively start to the game, Aaron Bolger blazing over after Stephen Walsh nodded down Lee Devitt’s cross.
Sloppy defending back at the other end would lead to Saints’ going ahead on eight minutes.
The tenacity of Luke Turner was key as he initially won the ball off a sluggish David Hurley to then set up Edmondson to rifle low to the net for his ninth goal of the season.
Da Cunha then stood strong to parry a stinging drive from Edmondson but could do nothing to prevent St Pat’s ripping the visitors to shreds in doubling their lead on 17 minutes.
Hurley failed to clear resulting in Turner’s cross being knocked down by Edmondson for James Brown. The wingback dinked the ball into the path of Leavy who swept home off his left-foot.
Further poor defending saw Galway concede again seven minutes later as St Pat’s recycled McClelland’s corner.
Da Cunha initially made a fine parry save from Brown’s drive. Keena pounced on the rebound to volley past the the stranded keeper.
His utterly disjointed side 3-0 down, Caulfield brought on Matt Wolfe, Frantz Pierrot and new signing Leigh Kavanagh for Jimmy Keohane, Conor McCormack and Killian Brouder.
But Da Cunha had to make further saves from Leavy and Edmondson before Jamie Lennon rattled the crossbar with a header from a corner as Galway survived conceding further before half-time.
The impressive Turner saw a shot tipped round a post by Da Cunha while Edmondson also had a couple of half chances as St Pat’s mined for further goals.
Better than in the first half, Galway laboured to regain some sort of foothold in the game but never worked Danny Rogers between the home posts.
Back at the other end, 17-year-old Ryan Sheridan, on for his league debut, almost had the final say when his shot was blocked by Devitt.
It mattered not as St Patrick’s eased to a fifth victory by three goals or more this season.
Rogers; Redmond, Hoare, Turner; Lennon; Brown, Leavy (Sheridan, 77), Palmer (Forrester, 84), McClelland (Breslin, 84,); Keena (Baggley, 68), Edmondson (Nugent, 77).
Da Cunha; Keohane (Wolfe, 28), Williams (Kazeem, 54), Facchineri, Brouder (Kavanagh, 28), Devitt; Hurley, McCormack (Pierrot, 28), Bolger, McCarthy; Walsh (Connolly, 72).
Kevin O’Sullivan (Cork).
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