Pats 3 UCD 2, Pride saved but not points

[Poor Student]

Entertaining enough game but disappointing for UCD. We started off more threatening but nothing serious. But a mistake from Hurley let Pats gain possession around the half way line and take it down the right wing. Mick was beaten and pushed his man and Ger Rowe scored a header from a cross from the right from the free kick. The second goal could have been prevented by Quigley I think. He saved a shot Dunne but parried it back towards him and he stuck it in the net. Robbie Doyle should have put them three ahead but he hit the post in a one on one. Can't really remember the third.

I think in the first half the score flattered Pats as they weren't really that dominant. There were two chances to equalise after the first goal we should have taken both nearly identical chances. A cross from the wide and free man around the 6 yard box, first Dupuy then McWalter, both over the bar. Passing was quite sloppy in the first half particularly from Micko and Hurley.

Mahon changed Kierans from Sammons at half time, at least I think. Tony Mac was pushed up into midfield and we came out a far better team in the 2nd half. Dupuy had a decent chance to score when the ball was played into him from the left and he turned his man at the edge of the box only to shoot straight at the keeper. It wasn't until the 75th min that we scored though. A free kick on the wide right whipped in by Mahon was headed away by a poorly marked McNally. Byrne then came on for Dupuy and I think scored from another tossed in free kick finishing away at the far post. We came close to an equaliser at the end but Pats managed to get the cross out for a corner from which we did nothing.

Disappointing result. We should never have found ourselves three down. Dicker and Hurley is not a strong enough midfield partnership. I think we need to move Tony Mac back to the middle for next week. I also thought that Micko looked fairly suspect on the left back role done by his man a few times and passing slackly.

[CollegeTillIDie]

As a supplement to Poor Student's report.
Gary Dicker missed the game through illness with a mystery virus. It's not clear how long he will be missing. He was replaced on the night by Colm Kierans and in a match he would prefer to forget he was replaced at half-time by Conor Kenna with Tony Mc pushed into midfield in the second half.

U.C.D. started the game having the better of the early exchanges without creating a clear cut opportunity. It was set pieces that were to be the main feature of the game.
St. Pat's took the lead through Gerard Rowe who scored the opening goal in the 13th minute when he headed home from a free-kick. Keith Dunne made it 2-0 on 22 minutes after a Rowe shot was parried by Darren Quigley.

Rowe grabbed his second of the game to make it 3-0 in the 31st minute when he steered the ball home from the edge of the area.

But UCD fought back and Alan McNally made it 3-1 with a close range header from an Alan Mahon free kick in the 75th minute before substitute Paul Byrne poked home another Mahon free on 83 minutes to make it 3-2.

COLLEGE: Darren Quigely; Alan Mahon, Alan McNally, Tony McDonnell, Mick O'Donnell ( Adrian Murphy 84 minutes); Anto Murphy, Colm Kierans ( Conor Kenna 46 minutes),Stephen Hurley, Pat McWalter ; Damien Dupuy( Paul Byrne 81 minutes), Robbie Martin
Attendance: 1,433 as announced over the PA

[Poor Student]

Ahhh, I got the Kierans starting, Kenna sub thing totally wrong. Seems Dunn tapped in from Rowe's shot too.

CTID you weren't on the left side of the main stand with headphones and a scarf by any chance were you?

[CollegeTillIDie]

Ahhh, I got the Kierans starting, Kenna sub thing totally wrong. Seems Dunn tapped in from Rowe's shot too.

CTID you weren't on the left side of the main stand with headphones and a scarf by any chance were you?

Don't beat yourself up about getting Kierans wrong... so did the PA Announcer. I found out from Robbie Mc .
Depends where you were , I was on the left side of the stand from where I was sitting ....yes you are correct.
Robbie Mc and his Dad were a couple of rows behind to my left and The Dicker family were not far from them.

[Poor Student]

Don't beat yourself up about getting Kierans wrong... so did the PA Announcer. I found out from Robbie Mc .
Depends where you were , I was on the left side of the stand from where I was sitting ....yes you are correct.
Robbie Mc and his Dad were a couple of rows behind to my left and The Dicker family were not far from them.

You were the chap who kinda nearly got hit by the ball when holding coffee?

Surely we submit a team sheet saying who we are starting?

[CollegeTillIDie]

You were the chap who kinda nearly got hit by the ball when holding coffee?

Surely we submit a team sheet saying who we are starting?

Yes that was I who almost got hit by the ball

[CollegeTillIDie]

Surely we submit a team sheet saying who we are starting?

We do but perhaps the PA announcer was illiterate

[CollegeTillIDie]

Poor Student

Including the three half-time draw sellers from Belfield Park, another regular supporter I bumped into, the Dicker Family , the MacAuleys, myself and my father and you of course there were nearly 20 UCD supporters at the game.

pineappple stu, Aberdeen Stu and a few of the STIG regulars etc were missing in action .

[Poor Student]

Poor Student

Including the three half-time draw sellers from Belfield Park, another regular supporter I bumped into, the Dicker Family , the MacAuleys, myself and my father and you of course there were nearly 20 UCD supporters at the game.

pineappple stu, Aberdeen Stu and a few of the STIG regulars etc were missing in action .

I was sitting three or four seats directly behind you I think. Funny, I couldn't figure out if our supporters were gathered somewhere else or non-existent. Is 20 good or poor for a Pats game? There were a few sparse claps littered around the stand when we scored. That was my first away tie granted I think Richmond is the same distance if not closer to me than Belfield.

[pineapple stu]

Missed the game (thogh at least I know the rudimentaries of salsa dancing! ) but had the text alert on in the pub after. Got the first two alerts at the same time saying we were 2-0 down!!! Got some stick for that, but at least we pulled it back to 3-2. Paul Byrne scores again! Four goals in around one full game! He'd been off form lately, but must be pushing for a starting spot in the next few games, especially if he keeps that sort of scoring rate up (and as he has now shown, he can do it in the Premier too!)! What happened to the defence though?! Three goals against!?

[Colie]

Was that the worst first half College have ever had? Fukin sh1te.

McKenna was good. The Pats lads there tell me he's originally a Drimnagh lad so they gave him a bit of stick. Keep him in the first 11 I recon. It's time to drop Damien Dupuy, he's not been very good really the last few; I guess Byrne deserves his start.

If UCD hadda played in the first half at all they woulda won. That missed header in the first half was second as miss of the season only to Jason Byrne against Pats from 2 yards.

College still look good when good.

[CollegeTillIDie]

Colie

Think you have a point about Damien not playing well, he really should have scored in the first half. However as against that it takes a while to settle into a new team, plus nobody else in the team has outscored him so far!

[CollegeTillIDie]

Missed the game (thogh at least I know the rudimentaries of salsa dancing! ) but had the text alert on in the pub after. Got the first two alerts at the same time saying we were 2-0 down!!! Got some stock for that, but at least we pulled it back to 3-2. Paul Byrne scores again! Four goals in around one full game! He'd been off form lately, but must be pushing for a startgin spot in the next few games, especially if he keeps that sort of scoring rate up (and as he has now shown, he can do it in the Premier too!)! What happened to the defence though?! Three goals against!?

Paul Byrne's stats :
Played minutes of first team football = 86 League goals = 4
At his present rate of scoring he will have scored 400 League goals by the time he makes 100th League Start

[CollegeTillIDie]

Poor student

Do we know each other? Give me a shout in the souvenir shop next Friday, bout time even a poor student had an official key ring

[Poor Student]

I reckon I know you, you probably don't know me. But if you're the souvenier shop operator then I gave you 50 Euro at the last game for a 1.50 programme.

I noticed another stat for the second successive week we doubled our season's goal tally. From 2 to 4. If this trend continues we score 4 next week.

Contrary to what his goal scoring tally says I think Damien is doing alright. He's pretty strong, can hold up the ball and harries defenders and did some good work driving down the right sometimes. Yes he really should have put that one away but I am not sure if Martin is the right partner for him. He has had an equally dry patch.

Definately I believe the defence is a bit shakey. I really think poor Micko was out of his depth. Things got a lot better when Kenna came on but I think that had to do with Tony Mac moving back to his midfield role. I earlier said Dicker and Hurley were not strong enough but it was Kierens not Dicker playing. Hurley looks to have great potential but is selling a lot of passes short. I'd be tempted to play a midfield of McWalter on the right, Tony Mac and Anto Murphy in the middle and Micko on the left with last year's back 4 when Robbie Mac comes back.

[Schumi]

What the **** was our defence at for the first half?? We had more of the play but nearly every time they went forward, they scored. We didn't close them down when they pushing forward at us and just let them pass the ball around us. Quigley didn't have a great game but was left far too exposed on a number of occasions. The midfield did OK but once Pats got the ball past them, we were in serious trouble. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that they could have had 5 in the first half. Having said that, on the balance of play we didn't deserve to be 3-0 down really; had we defended at all competently we would have been well in the game. If that open header (I thought it was McWalter that missed that rather than Dupuy ) had gone in at 1-0, I think it could well have stayed 1-1 to half time.

Bringing Kenna on for Kierans was the right call although we should have started that way IMO (I assume Kenna isn't injured or anything). Tony Mac had a poor game in defence but did a lot better in midfield in the seond half and Kierans was fairly anonymous. I think that our better second half was at least as much down to Pats easing off (understandable at 3-0 up at half time) as it was to us playing any better. The goals were nice to get to at least make the score respectable although it would have been utter robbery to have got a point out of the game.

Paul Byrne should start against Derry. He's scored in every game that he's got more than 10 minutes in so I don' know how much more he has to do to get a start.

The PA man was hilarious, he got nearly every UCD player's name wrong, often differently wrong on two occasions. He must have been doing it on purpose; if not, he needs to either get his eyes checked or learn to read!

[Poor Student]

Dupuy missed the total sitter. Definately I could see the 10 on the shirt. However Pat missed a pretty similar let slightly less certain of a chance a few mins later. Hurley also could have equalised or opened (can't remember when) with a nice turn on the edge of the box and a fairly decent long range effort. That's exactly it though, a pretty decent first half for us except the defence was a total sieve!

I'd start Byrne too but I'd drop Martin (no real disrespect to him) as I reckon Byrne looks a bit lightweight even for his size and we'd need Dupuy's strength up front. I think Hurley needs to be dropped, we need an experienced centre midfield.

[CollegeTillIDie]

I reckon I know you, you probably don't know me. But if you're the souvenier shop operator then I gave you 50 Euro at the last game for a 1.50 programme.

I noticed another stat for the second successive week we doubled our season's goal tally. From 2 to 4. If this trend continues we score 4 next week.

Contrary to what his goal scoring tally says I think Damien is doing alright. He's pretty strong, can hold up the ball and harries defenders and did some good work driving down the right sometimes. Yes he really should have put that one away but I am not sure if Martin is the right partner for him. He has had an equally dry patch.

Definately I believe the defence is a bit shakey. I really think poor Micko was out of his depth. Things got a lot better when Kenna came on but I think that had to do with Tony Mac moving back to his midfield role. I earlier said Dicker and Hurley were not strong enough but it was Kierens not Dicker playing. Hurley looks to have great potential but is selling a lot of passes short. I'd be tempted to play a midfield of McWalter on the right, Tony Mac and Anto Murphy in the middle and Micko on the left with last year's back 4 when Robbie Mac comes back.

Agreed on the first choice midfield

[pineapple stu]

Paul Byrne should start against Derry. He's scored in every game that he's got more than 10 minutes in so I don' know how much more he has to do to get a start.

He's been in a really bad spell formwise lately apparently (sure look at how few goals he scored in the Collingwood and the Harding! ) but seems to be back to form now if he can get back into the squad and then score with his first touch. I'd say he'll be a fixture in the squad now, pushing for a starting XI. Looking forward to the League Cup for a change!

Kierans in for Dicker sounds a strange swap. Kenna or even Aidan Lynch seems to make far more sense surely?

[CollegeTillIDie]

pineapple stu

Yes it was a puzzler, especially as the PA announcer got his name wrong not once but twice