FIVE minutes of bad defending just before half time cost Bray Wanderers a match they showed they were capable of winning at Belfield yesterday.
Well in command and leading from Ritchie Parsons's 30th minute goal, Bray gave away two soft goals to turn the game to UCD's advantage, leaving manager, Pat Devlin, totally frustrated.
"I'm sick to death of this," he said after 20 minutes behind a locked changing room door. "If we had been well beaten I could accept it, but we just don't seem to learn from our mistakes. We went from cantering along nicely early on to putting in probably our worst performance this season.
The first error came on 38 minutes when both Ally Smith and Parsons allowed UCD's Robert Griffin win the ball on the half way line and set off on a run that brought a dubiously awarded freekick on the edge of the area when Stephen Craig finally brought Griffin's run to a halt. UCD's captain, Jason Colwell, curled the direct free kick round the wall to beat Bray goalkeeper, John Walsh, at his left hand post.
Five minutes later UCD's Jonathan Treacy won a challenge with Pat O'Brien to play Mick O'Donnell away down the left. Walsh needlessly raced from his goal, hesitated only to compound his mistake, leaving O'Donnell to lob the ball across the goal for Mick O'Byrne to tap in.
It had all started so well for Bray, without a win in 14 games, and they took the lead with a superbly executed goal on the half hour. Don Tierney and Sergio Jaramillo combined for the latter to chip a clever ball to Robbie Coyle on the left wing. He crossed low through the legs of Eamonn McLoughlin for the unmarked Parsons to sidefoot home from just a few yards.