League of Ireland - Derry City 1 Galway Utd 3:EX-DERRY City striker Alan Murphy led Galway to a surprise victory at the Brandywell last night as Stephen Kenny's side experienced a second-half collapse.
The home side had opened particularly well and after James McClean broke the deadlock after just four minutes, Derry could have added at least another two goals, such was their early dominance.
However, the Foyleside club’s well-documented financial difficulties are beginning to cause frustration and last night’s Brandywell attendance was much smaller than had been anticipated.
Mark Farren, Tam McManus and McClean all spurned decent scoring chances within the opening 15 minutes, but Derry’s high tempo appeared to drop significantly as the half wore on.
And they were punished in the 44th minute when conceding a particularly soft equaliser. Murphy floated a free-kick into the danger area and when Séamus Conneely headed the ball across the face of the goal, the well-placed David Cooke forced it home.
Derry never really recovered after the break and the attendance of 1,500 was stunned in the 68th minute when Galway took the lead.
Attempting to break forward on the left, McClean and Barry Molloy were both caught out and when the ball was fed to Aaron Green he raced past Peter Hutton, skilfully turning inside before drilling the ball low to the net.
Derry’s problems were compounded in the 75th minute when Galway netted a third goal to effectively kill the game as a contest.
Goalkeeper Ger Doherty threw the ball out in an attempt to find Eddie McCallion, who had already started to move forward, and Murphy was quick to react, the midfielder producing a superb strike when curling the ball home from 18 yards.
DERRY CITY:Doherty; McCallion, Delaney, Hutton, O'Brien (Molloy, 18 mins); McGlynn, Higgins, Martyn (Stewart, 69 mins), McClean; McManus, Farren (Nash, 80 mins).
GALWAY UNITED:Ryan; Sinnott, Conneely, Breen, O'Toole; Cooke (Fitzgerald, 46 mins), Kelly, Murphy, McBrien; Green, Faherty.
Referee:D Hanney (Dublin).
