Derry City 4 Limerick FC 0

(taken form eleven-a-side.com)

Derry City 4-0 Limerick FC
Derry win 4-0 on aggregate

A sensational 14-minute hat-trick from young striker Mark Farren - his first senior goals for the club - spurred Derry City through to the promotion/relegation play-off final.

There, next Wednesday and Saturday, the Candystripes take on Finn Harps, when Donegal youngster Farren will be charged with the task of ending the hopes of his countymen.

The challenge would not appear to be beyond him, on all the evidence of the past few weeks. Since being handed a first-team starting role for the first time against Shamrock Rovers a little over a fortnight ago, Farren has seemed destined to play a major role in Derry’s survival bid.

And while he had failed to find the target in his four starts prior to last night, the abundant promise has always been there. At the Brandywell against hapless Limerick, Farren delivered in spades to vindicate the decision of manager Gavin Dykes to place his faith in one so young.

Dykes has claimed that Farren will be a big-time player for Derry over the next few years - but that it was far from certain at what level he would be playing at. His treble on Saturday night puts Derry on the cusp of saving their top flight status.

And while the final against fierce rivals Harps will be a cracking contest, the Candystripes will still be considered favourites to extend the sequence of victories by a Premier Division side in the end-of-season play-offs to four, following wins in recent years by Drogheda United, Longford Town and UCD.

The stalemate of the first leg at the Pike Rovers Sports Ground was extended for almost the entire first half at the Brandywell on Saturday, but once Farren put his side in front a minute from the break there was no coming back for the Shannonsiders.

Derry had had the bulk of the chances, with Robbie Hedderman, Ciaran Martyn and Sean Hargan all going close, but Farren made no mistake in the 44th minute.

He got on the end of a low cross from Gary Beckett to fire past John Healy in the Lims goal, and that left the home side in command going into the half-time interval.

Five minutes after the break, he sprinted onto Sean Hargan’s long pass down the left flank, and held his nerve to beat the advancing Healy to make it 2-0.

Limerick boss Mike Kerley then sent on joint top scorer Derek McCarthy, who he had surprisingly left on the bench in a move evidently designed at shoring up the defence and keeping things as tight as possible.

But by the time of McCarthy’s introduction, the tie was already well beyond the visitors. And Farren completed his hat-trick on 58 minutes, flicking Hargan’s cross-cum-shot past Healy to make it three, while full back Eddie McCallion completed the rout with his side’s fourth five minutes from time.

Derry City: Gough, McCallion, Hargan, Hutton, McLaughlin, Doherty, Martyn, Hedderman, Beckett (Coyle, 80), Farren (Holt, 80), Deery.

Limerick FC: Healy, O’Mahoney, Molan, Finucane, Purcell, Sweeney, Keating, Sugrue, Heffernan, O’Donoghue (McCarthy, 53), O’Flynn.

Referee: D. McKeon (Dublin).