St Patrick’s Athletic 1 Derry City 1
Derry City’s hopes of playing in Europe next season remains in their own hands following a 1-1 draw with newly-crowned Airtricity champons St Patrick’s Athletic in Dublin tonight.
Barry McNamee put Derry in front against St Pat’s.
City remain in fourth place but are not just a point ahead of Shamrock Rovers who recorded a comfortable 4-1 at UCD.
Derry will clinch fourth place with a win at home to Limerick next week. Any other result and a win by Rovers over Sligo Rovers would see the Brandywell club miss out on the hope of qualifying for next season’s Europa League.
Whoever does clinch fourth spot must depend on Sligo Rovers winning the FAI Cup.
Derry started the better of the two in Dublin and could have been two goals to the good within the first seven minutes.
There was only five minutes on the clock when a slip a slip by Conor Kenna knocked the ball to Michael Rafter and who raced through but his shot was brilliantly saved by Brendan Clarke.
Two minutes later, Patrick McEleney hit the crossbar with a shot from outside the box.
Christy Fagan the offside trap in the ninth minute to force a save from Doherty.
The visitors went in front in the 34th minute when, after some slow build-up play on the right coupled with poor defending, Ryan Curran slipped the ball through to a totally unmarked McNamee who took a touch before stroking it under the diving body of Brendan Clarke.
The home side drew level when substitute Anto Flood’s speculative effort from 20 yards out on the left wing dipped under the far corner of Ger Doherty’s goal.
It appears as though Buckley’s last roll of the dice may have saved defeat here as Anto Flood from about 20 yards out on the left wing tries a speculative effort which dips into the far corner of Ger Doherty’s goal and the sub races to the bench to celebrate with the manager.
