5th April 2010
Drogheda United v Bray
Match Report
Drogs 0 Bray 0
The blustery conditions were a big factor in this nil-nil draw when the Drogs were unable to take advantage of the strong breeze in the first half and found themselves facing into driving rain in the second half. Their best chances came in the first half against this resilient Bray side, but in the end, with Bray pressing for most of the second half and the visitors having two goals disallowed, in the end , we were happy with a draw.
Paul Murphy came in for his first League start in goals and did pretty well all through,indeed it needed good saves from him to keep the visitors out in the second half. Joe Kendrick lined out with Alan McNally in the middle with Jamie Harris dropping to the bench after taking a few heavy knocks on Friday night. Otherwise, we fielded the same team which finished so strongly against Sligo on Friday. Ryan Brennan continued in left midfield, taking a break from international duty.
We did all the early pressing. On 12 Jamie Duffy beat the defence and shot wide from close in. On 17 Eric McGill shot wide and on 19 Ryan Brennan had a good shot from an acute angle beaten away for a corner. Our best chance of the half came on 34 minutes when Mick Daly took a good Glen Fitzpatrick lay-off on the right to strike the bar with a great effort. Daly shot wide on 40 and that was about it from us in the first half.
As we had failed to take advantage of the elements in the first half, we expected that we aould cope better in the second, but it was not to be. The resurgent Bray side had the upper hand for most of the second half, had two goals disallowed and despite the substitution of Harris and Flood for Duffy and Osbourne, and later of O'Connor for Brennan, we failed to sparkle and in the end had some hairy moments before the final whistle.
As in all matches like this where we expect to win and end up hanging on, it is sometimes hard to analyse. What probably happened is that we had a hard match on Friday against Sligo and we had a combination of being slightly jaded and were not expecting Bray to be so resilient. To be fair to Eddie Gormley, who felt quite hard done by in the end, his mixture of youth and experience worked very well and frustrated us throughout the match. We kicked off with the very strong wind at our backs and as early as the second minute Eoghan Osbourne struck a great shot just over the bar.
Team: Murphy, King, Osbourne (Harris 70), Kendrick, McNally, E. McGill, Crowley, Brennan(Flood 70), Daly, Duffy (O'Connor 76), Fitzpatrick |
