St Patrick’s Athletic 2

Galway United 1

SOMETIMES in sport you have to hold your hands up and just accept you were beaten by the better team, which was the case for Galway United on Friday night.

The result leaves their European aspirations in serious jeopardy but really, apart from maybe a couple of questionable selection decisions, you could not find fault with the Tribesmen, who left absolutely everything on the pitch in what was an at times thrilling, and sometimes tetchy, league clash.

The game threatened to spill over just before half-time in two separate incidents which both benches should look back on shamefully: rival coaches Ollie Horgan and Brian Gartland were both booked in the 45th minute on the advice of fourth official Mark Moynihan, after a spate of petty bickering you wouldn’t accept in a schoolyard.

Tempers were still frayed when, in injury-time, Chris Forrester went in with what was, if we’re honest, nothing more than a good old fashion hard ball-winning tackle on Karl O’Sullivan in front of the benches.

Only the United bench didn’t see it like that, reacting with fury, which prompted a angry counter-reaction from the Pats bench. There was shoving and shouting, posturing and pushing, and when the dust settled, both the United coach, Chris Collopy, and the St Pat’s S&C coach, Graham Byrne, were sent off.

By our count, Horgan’s yellow and Collopy’s red brings to 22 the number of bookings picked up by the United technical staff this season. Make of that what you will.

We digress. Francely Lomboto was also booked for pushing over Forrester, and the St Pat’s man also picked up a booking, possibly for his initial tackle, possibly for being a lousy actor with his laughable flop, but unfortunately for United, he was far more convincing when actually playing football.

It was the midfield maestro, back in his second spell at Richmond Park, who set up both of his side’s goals in a game which attracted St Pat’s biggest attendance of the season, with 4,851 spectators in the ground, including around 300 or so of a United persuasion uncomfortably shoehorned into one corner of the main stand until the pinch point was relieved by allowing an overlfow into the terrace behind the goal at the Kilmainham end.

Pictured: Galway United’s Edward McCarthy who scored a screamer of a goal in their 2-1 defeat to St Patrick’s Athletic at Richmond Park on Friday night.