LEAGUE OF IRELAND/St Patrick's Ath 0 Sporting Fingal 0:IN THE wake of last week's scoreless draw in Dundalk, one St Patrick's Athletic official had observed that, goals aside, it had been a game with a little bit of everything and, to be fair, it was hard to argue with that. This one, on the other, came up short on a few different fronts.
Perhaps after decent starts to the campaign, there was a sense that both sides were primarily out to avoid defeat but if the lack of scoring chances and, late on, the surprising lack of attacking urgency could be explained away on that basis, the poor quality of so much of the football was a good deal less understandable.
On balance, the draw was certainly a fair enough outcome in that neither side deserved to win, but both might come to regret having not taken a few more chances on nights like this if Bohemians hit their stride during the weeks ahead.
By the end, Liam Buckley might just have felt the more disappointed with Fingal’s point for they certainly came closer to nicking the extra two during the closing exchanges.
On a couple of occasions they had seemed close to making the breakthrough while the hosts simply couldn’t finish what they started on the break with some neat passing as speed counting for little when indecision set in around their opposition’s box.
At Oriel Park, there were spells when the survival of Athletic’s perfect defensive record was a little hard to explain but over the first hour here there was little enough to threaten it with Gary O’Neill struggling to make a major impact up front and neither of the visitors’ wide men causing the sort of problems that Buckley would have hoped for.
Late on, things were a little different with Eamon Zayed missing what should have been a straightforward header and Alan Kirby, in injury-time, forcing the save of the game from Gary Rogers.
But crucially they avoided conceding, the first time they had done so in their first five league games of the campaign in almost 60 years of senior football.
Zayed, in fact, had threatened to open the scoring at one point early on when he held off two defenders and set himself up well for an attempt on goal but his header looped over the crossbar as well as Rogers and aside from that there was barely a serious crack at the home side’s goal until Shane McFaul drove low and narrowly wide five minutes after the break.
At the other end, Vinny Faherty came closest for the hosts with a shot that flew just over and the former Galway United player looked well placed to turn the ball home not long after only to see Ryan Guy’s low cross from the left turned behind him by a defender’s outstretched leg.
Those few chances aside, the game was largely played out in a fairly packed midfield where the football was scrappy and the game characterised by a couple of odd refereeing decisions, one of which resulted in Guy’s booking which in turn prompted levels of exasperation on the part of the American that will take some beating between now and the end of the season.
To be fair to Anthony Buttimer, though, he got the biggest call right when, two minutes from time, Keith Quinn went down after a challenge by Brian Cash. From a distance it looked like a penalty although the locals still demanded that the young midfielder be booked for a dive.
The referee did neither and, sure enough, replays showed that Cash had won the ball and then taken the man.
ST PATRICK’S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Pender, Guthrie, Kenna, Bermingham; MaAllister (Cash, 58 mins), Mulcahy, S Byrne, Guy; Faherty (P Byrne, 79 mins), Williams (Doyle, 90 mins).
SPORTING FINGAL: Clarke; O’Brien, Maher, Browne, Frost; McFaul, Williams; Byrne (Quinn, 73 mins), Kirby, Zayed; O’Neill (Crowe, 80 mins).
Referee: A Buttimer (Cork).
