Galway United 2

St Patrick’s Athletic 1

A night that started on the most sombre of notes ended in an explosion of joy as Galway United recorded a first league win in 10 games over St Patrick’s Athletic to show that the men from the West mean business this season.

The build-up to the game had been overshadowed by the death of Nora Caulfield, mother of United manager, John, and she was laid to rest on the morning of the game. The United boss turned up at the ground about 15 minutes before kick-off, and he took his usual place in the dugout for the game: his assistant, Ollie Horgan revealed after the game that Caulfield’s father – also called John, and a regular at United games – told his son to go to the game.

The match was preceded by a minute’s applause in memory of both the late Nora Caulfield, and also in memory of the late United chairman, Joe Hanley, who died in December, and is recognised as one of the greatest servants of the club.

Their memories were honoured in the best possible way by the players, who produced a brilliant performance to take all three points thanks to a brace from Patrick Hickey, who scored twice in the space of eight first-half minutes to take his tally to three for the season, just one shy of his haul for the entirety of the 2024 league campaign.

The visitors pulled a goal back just past the half-hour mark with a stunning strike that will take some beating for the Goal of the Season accolade, but apart from a brilliant finger-tip save from Brendan Clarke, and a last-ditch clearance by Jeannot Esua, United were largely untroubled by the expensively-assembled visitors from Dublin 8.

It meant United followed an opening night draw with Cork City to record a first home win over St Pat’s since September 2009, showing that the Tribesmen were no one-hit wonders with their lofty finish of 5th last season.

The home side went with the same starting XI from the 2-2 draw in Cork the previous week, although there were some changes to the bench, with Conor McCormack, Cillian Tollett, and new loan signing from Bohs, Cian Byrne, coming into the match-day squad in place of Colm Horgan, Ed McCarthy, and Sean Kerrigan.

Kenny didn’t show as much patience with his players that played out a scoreless draw at home to Drogheda on the opening night, the former Republic of Ireland manager bringing Romal Palmer, Ryan McLauglin and Luke Turner into the side as Tom Grivosti, Barry Baggley, and Carl Sjoberg all dropped to the bench, though Baggley did end up starting the game after Jamie Lennon picked up an injury in the warm-up.

Pictured: Galway United’s Greg Cunningham tussling for possession with Barry Crowe Baggley of St Patrick’s Athletic during Friday night’s Premier Division tie at Eamonn Deacy Park. Photo: Joe O’Shaughnessy.