St. Patrick’s Athletic ran out 2-1 winners over Derry City in a hard-fought encounter at Richmond Park on Friday evening. Goals from Kurtis Byrne and Graham Kelly turned the game on its head after Ronan Curtis gave the visitors a first-half lead. T
St. Patrick’s Athletic ran out 2-1 winners over Derry City in a hard-fought encounter at Richmond Park on Friday evening. Goals from Kurtis Byrne and Graham Kelly turned the game on its head after Ronan Curtis gave the visitors a first-half lead. The hosts started the better of the two sides and really should have taken the lead before falling behind. A fizzing Kurtis Byrne effort from range dipped just over the bar, before a series of corners went by without much bother. Graham Kelly was guilty of a poor miss from inside six yards and Christy Fagan took an age to shoot when he broke through on Ger Doherty’s goal. Derry had a couple of chances themselves, and were it not for an outstanding stop from Conor O’Malley in the Saints goal to deny Harry Monaghan they would have gone ahead. Within moments of O’Malley’s acrobatics, City did take the lead as a corner found Curtis free to send a looping header back where it came from and into the top corner. After a number of chances early in the second half Pat’s eventually pulled level from the penalty spot, with Byrne smashing the ball home into the top corner. With not long left, a sublime cross-field ball from Rory Feely found the right foot of Conan Byrne who beat his man with a perfect first touch to cut the ball back leaving Kelly with a tap-in.
