Back with a bang after the midseason break, Dundalk made it three comfortable wins out of three here thanks to goals from Dane Massey and Pat McEleney. It must seem strange to the three times champions that they can be cruising like this and still be 15 points off the pace set this season by Cork City.
They had been a scoring streak recently but with the start of this season’s European campaign a couple of weeks away and a trip to Rosenborg already looming large on the horizon, Stephen Kenny made four changes. For Galway, a relegation battle is now a grim reality and with a visit to Richmond to come this Friday, they made six changes.
The most significant changes for the visitors seemed to be the resting of David Cawley and Ronan Murray. The latter, the club’s top scorer, eventually made an appearance at 2-0 as Shane Keegan sought to shake things up a little.
Picking his team’s more winnable battles is, of course, an important part of the job for the United boss at this stage. Having picked up just one point from a possible 15 since the defeat of Finn Harps in the middle of last month, United are urgently in need of a victory or two, ideally against rivals residing at the same end of the table.
That said, they actually beat Kenny’s side back in April and a win this time would have catapulted them from bottom of the league to eighth place, but there was little sense through most of this game that they seriously thought they could repeat the trick.
Rediscovered form
Galway looked instead as though they would happily settle for rediscovering the knack of not losing, something they had mastered impressively enough between mid-March and May with only Shamrock Rovers and Bray getting the better of them.
They struggled from the start here, however, giving Kenny’s men far too much time and space in which to build their moves then having to throw themselves into a somewhat last-ditch defence in and around their area.
The game looked a little like a training ground exercise at times with Dundalk having to find endless different ways to get Conor Winn and his goal in their sights. That David McMillan had hit the post within five minutes, though, sort of suggested that the hosts would sooner or later negotiate their way past whatever obstacles were put in their way.
Corner woes
Galway, to be fair, worked hard but that counts for little when you defend a corner the way did after 15 minutes. Massey was left to make a run from deep entirely unaccompanied and Michael Duffy teed him up nicely for a straightforward header from six yards out.
Keegan kept things as they were, perhaps fearing what might happen if his side started to open things up too early. It made little difference; his central defence of Lee Grace and Stephen Folan helped to keep their side in it until the second half thanks to a little luck and a lot of legwork.
Ultimately, though, the team had to start trying to pose a threat of their own and almost as soon as they showed some sign of it, Pat McEleney doubled his side’s lead with the 24-year-old turning well, after the ball should have been cleared, to shoot from 10 yards, drilling home his third goal in as many games.
There should have been another couple with, in particular, McMillan less than ruthless on a couple of occasions, although Winn did well enough too to frustrate him. Kenny will have been pleased, however, to see his side recover a bit of their old swagger just as the stakes are about to be upped again.
