Sligo Rovers 1
(Sadlier 34)
St Patrick’s Athletic 1
(Barker 75)
Sligo Rovers and St Patrick’s Athletic both earned their first point of the season after an entertaining duel at the Showgrounds on Friday.
Kieran Sadlier’s first-half free-kick opened the scoring, before defender Michael Barker fired home a second half equaliser for the visitors.
After the match, Ocean FM’s Darragh Cox spoke with Sligo Rovers boss Dave Robertson and St Pat’s manager Liam Buckley…
Sadlier smashed the ball low into the bottom corner on 34 minutes after Patrick Cregg had been booked for a bad challenge on John Russell.
It was a deserved lead for the home side, but they would have been behind at that stage only for Michael Leahy’s goal-line clearance.
The centre-back got back to hook Graham Kelly’s effort away from an empty goal, after goalkeeper Shaun Patton was unable to deal with an initial cross into the area on 19 minutes.
Prior to that, the only real chance of note was a dipping shot from Sadlier that Pat’s keeper Barry Murphy gathered safely in his arms.
Pat’s started the second half with a little more directness, and were almost level just two minutes in, as Jonathan Lunney’s shot from the edge of the box crashed off the crossbar.
The home side lost Regan Donelon to injury soon after, and St Pat’s put the pressure on, with Tobi Adebayo-Rowling and Patton making last-ditch blocks to deny firstly Billy Dennehy, and then Ian Bermingham.
But the leveller came on 75 minutes, shortly after Liam Buckley sent on striker Christy Fagan to try and find a breakthrough.
Full-back Barker proved the unlikely provider though Rovers substitute Raffaele Cretaro nearly won it just after his introduction only for good save from Murphy.
ROVERS: Patton, Adebayo-Rowling, Leahy, Callan-McFadden (Cretaro 83), Donelon (Boylan 56), Roddan, Russell, Kearns (Stevens 87), Kenny, Sadlier, Martin.
ST PAT’S: Murphy, Barker, Peers, Desmond, Bermingham, Cregg, C Byrne (K Byrne 83), Lunney, Kelly (A O’Hanlon 66), B Dennehy, J O’Hanlon (Fagan 74).
REF: J McKell.
