St Patrick's Athletic 0 - UCD 0In a game hampered by a strong wind, St Patrick's kept up their challenge of retaining the championship. Without the services of Ian Gilzean, knee injury, and Keith Doyle, on Under-20 World Cup duty, St Patrick's fought hard and were unlucky not to have taken the points. In a very entertaining first-half, St Patrick's, on the back of an impressive 3-0 away victory in Ballybofey, took command of the play with the help of a strong wind at their backs. In the space of a minute St Patrick's could have found themselves 2-0 up. After 16 minutes a knock down by Molloy to Osam, should have been blasted into the net but Osam failed to make contact. Within a minute the move of the match should have led to a Molloy goal. As Croly went storming up the right wing, he played a few one-two's and he fed the ball to Braithwaite and he laid it off to Molloy who was denied a shooting chance by McDonnell. With St Patrick's pushing forward in numbers, UCD were forced to defend deep, giving Russell and Morgan a lot of room in midfield. Russell was unlucky not to score when his inswinging free was missed by Hawkins, but it nearly crept in at the back post. St Patrick's finished the half on top with Wood looking on as Osam and Russell efforts failed to cause Barry Ryan too much problems. In a contrasting second half, UCD dealt with everything that St Patrick's threw at them. The partnership of Lynch and Delaney proved too much for Braithwaite and Molloy as they denied them any clear shot at goal. St Patrick's who looked threatening at set-pieces in the first half were never going to cause too many problems with the wind keeping the ball in the air for too long. However, the deadlock was almost broken after 77 minutes. Russell fed the on running Croly with a short corner and his shot with the outside of his right boot hit the far post with Ryan beaten. This seemed to spur St Patrick's on, as the crowd tried to get behind their team. A clever free from Russell found McGuinness, but just as he was about to shoot the ball was taken off his toe by Delaney. This timely tackle had surely prevented a certain goal. The introduction of Reilly for Molloy almost paid off. After 84 minutes his sceptical long range effort from 30 yards crashed off the cross bar with Ryan in no man's land. With the game ending scoreless, UCD for the second week in a row had thwarted the title contenders hopes, and at the same time picked up valuable points for themselves.
