BLUES SEE RED
9-man Waterford go down to Saints
RYAN BRENNAN’S early goal left Waterford singing the Blues on a night when they rarely threatened and clocked up two more red cards.
Without Stanley Aborah and Bastien Hery in their ranks because of lengthy suspensions arising from the RSC brawl, these are testing times for Alan Reynolds’ men.
The manager himself had to watch the game from the directors’ box because of a one-match touchline ban stemming from that same fiery Cork City clash.
The early season swagger and cohesion that propelled the promoted side towards the top of the table has suddenly deserted them.
A win here would have lifted Waterford to joint top alongside Dundalk – at least until they and Cork play respectively tonight
Instead, this was Waterford’s second defeat on the spin and Sander Puri and Gavan Holohan were sent off to copperfasten their frustration.
Reynolds’ midfield is disintegrating before his eyes. St Pat’s looked capable of running away with the contest in the first half and had a penalty shout dismissed and missed another either side of Brennan’s decisive goal.
But while they were clearly the better side, Liam Buckley’s charges at times made hard work of their numerical advantage.
Saints were cursing their luck that they were not further ahead by the break.
They were well in control when Brennan put them ahead in the 15th minute with a back post header from the impressive Darragh Markey’s deep cross.
Markey was a real thorn in Waterford’s side. Small in stature, the youngster turned in a big performance.
Saints ought to have doubled their lead in the 26th minute when awarded a penalty after Puri brought down Jake Keegan but the American striker pulled his spotkick wide.
That should have been their second penalty of the night but Graham Kelly booked Dean Clarke for diving in the fifth minute when Garry Comerford upended him. Both sides were forced to make changes at the break. Tyson Farago replaced Barry Murphy in the Saints goal while the visitors lost Rory Feely to injury so John
Kavanagh replaced him.
But Waterford’s night went from bad to worse five
minutes after the restart as Puri – booked earlier after conceding the penalty – walked on a second yellow for diving. The Saints continued to search for the insurance goal and went close soon after but Lawrence Vigouroux got fingertips to James Doona’s thunderous free kick from distance.
And they maintained that push for the remainder with Jamie Lennon twice seeing on-target efforts from distance deflect for corners.
But any hope Waterford had of a comeback evaporated with 17 minutes to play when Holohan saw red for a crude tackle on Markey and it was damage limitation thereafter.
ST PATRICK’S: Murphy (Farago 45); Madden, Desmond, Toner, Bermingham; Lennon; Doona (Doona 87), R Brennan, Markey (Garvan 86), Clarke; Keegan. WATERFORD: Vigouroux; Feely (Kavanagh 45), Webster, Comerford, Barnett; Keegan; Puri, Holohan, Kasmi (O’halloran 71); Akinade (Martin 71), Duffus.
REFEREE: G Kelly (Cork).