Lilywhites too strong for Town
WARRENPOINT TOWN 0 DUNDALK 4
DUNDALK warmed up for their Europa League clash with Maccabi Tel Aviv with a comfortable friendly win over Warrenpoint Town in Milltown last Thursday.
Stephen Kenny’s side bossed the game from start to finish with the only downside being the hamstring injury sustained by Chris Shields on the hour mark which makes him doubtful for the trip to Israel.
It was all one-way traffic on the night against a Warrenpoint side managed by former Dundalk player Matthew Tipton, who has another ex-Lilywhite Stephen McDonnell amongst his backroom team.
Dundalk lined up with a 4-3-3 formation and it had the NIFL Championship leaders stretched from start to finish.
The visitors were in the ascendancy from the off and it appeared only a matter of time before the breakthrough arrived, which it did on 11 minutes with Ronan Finn firing home the rebound after Robbie Benson – who moments earlier had a shot cleared off the line by Dermot McVeigh – was denied by goalkeeper Stephen Maguire.
The fact that it remained 1-0 at the break was very much down to Maguire, as well as some poor finishing from Dundalk. Two minutes after the breakthrough David McMillan fired over from close range while after that Maguire pulled off a string of top class saves – the pick of the bunch being his stop on the quarter hour mark when he denied Benson with his right leg. In what was an inspired display he also tipped a long range shot from Finn around the post and brilliantly kept out a free from McMillan five minutes before half-time.
By contrast Gary Rogers hadn’t a single shot to deal with, either on or off target before being replaced by Gabriel Sava as one of three half-time changes.
Another one of those, Ciaran Kilduff, would come up with the second goal four minutes after the restart and it was certainly worth the wait as he latched onto a pass from Benson to curl a shot around Maguire to the top right hand corner of the net.
Then on 54 minutes it was 3-0. After a corner was headed straight back out to him on the left, Patrick McEleney dropped a shoulder to burst to the endline before squaring to Brian Gartland for the simplest of tap-ins.
It would be two minutes later before Warrenpoint managed their first shot at goal when, in a rare break, Kurtis Dempster found space on the right before firing into the side-netting.
The home side’s only other chances for the remainder of the game were a hugely ambitious attempt at a shot from the half-way line by Josh Lynch that lacked both power and accuracy and an attempt by former Dundalk striker Tiarnan Mulvenna late on that just evaded the corner flag.
Dundalk’s evening was soured slightly by the injury to Shields on the hour mark but it didn’t prevent them from continuing to push forward with most of the main threat coming from Kilduff who was denied by the brilliant Maguire before rattling the crossbar moments later.
A fourth did arrive in the 69th minute in somewhat comical fashion as Stephen Moan took the ball off the toe of Kilduff only to see it loop up over Maguire and into his own net.
It was a decent work out before Israel although the test over there will undoubtedly be much sterner. WARRENPOINT TOWN: Maguire; Haughey, Garland (Moan ht), McVeigh (Bain 55), Traynor; Mulvenna, McKenna, Lynch, Lockhart (Devlin ht); Bagnall; Croskery (Dempster ht).
DUNDALK: Rogers (Sava ht); Gannon, Gartland, Barrett (Boyle ht), Massey; Shields (Barrett 60), Finn (M O’Connor 80), Benson; McEleney, McMillan, Mountney (Kilduff ht). Sub not used: Meenan.