Sligo Rovers  3  -  0  Monaghan United

Sligo Rovers ended Monaghan United’s run in the FAI/Ford Cup with an emphatic 3-0 at the Showgrounds, however the third goal didn’t come until the final kick of the game.

As we have come to expect from the United side recently they were very disciplined at the back and in the first half were under constant pressure from  Sligo and it took a set piece to beat them.  Unfortunately Philly Hughes was ploughing a lone furrow up front and the supply to him was poor.

When Cathal O’ Connor handled the ball on 24 minutes in the area Alan Keane sent Gabriel Sava the wrong way with his spot kick.  Nine minutes later Sava prevented Sligo from doubling their lead with an excellent save from Matthew Blinkhorn from the front of the area.  Sligo continued to pressurise and an indication of this was the eight corners they forced to United’s three in the opening 45 minutes, fortunately each of their corners were poorly taken.  Although for all their pressure Sligo didn’t create that many chances as United defended their area well, their best chance was a shot across goal by Eoin Doyle which appeared to take a slight deflection which saw it go narrowly wide of the post.  Shane Grimes with a very good attack up the wing and a cross to match proved that you could get past Sligo.  Cathal O’Connor appeared to be fouled in the area but they referee deemed otherwise.  As the first half came to an end United were at last starting to get forward so we looked forward to the second half and hoped that Mick Cooke could come up with some inspiration with the half time team talk.

On the resumption Cooke did ring some changes, Karl Bermingham came on for Cathal O’ Connor who had been on the receiving end of some heavy knocks in the opening half, the manager also changed the formation by putting Bermingham up front with Hughes.  However only 30 seconds had elapsed when disaster struck, a high ball in which Aidan Collins won and took down brilliantly under pressure, unfortunately he sliced his clearance, it fell at the feet of Romauld  Bosco who flashed it to the net.

Despite the goal it would be a much better second half performance from United and were unfortunate not to get at least a goal back from some good chances from Clancy, Bermingham and Hughes and again they restricted  Sligo to few chances the best of which was a strike from Blinkhorn which again was well saved by Sava.  Aidan Lynch made a welcome return to the action when he came on after 41 minutes for Dom Tierney and when Darragh Hanaphy came on for Hughes on 83 minutes he livened things up front.

With almost the final kick of the game Sligo scored their third, Mark Mc. Goldrick who was scarcely a minute on the field got his head to a back pass from Grimes, the ball came awkwardly to the United defender he attempted to head back to his keeper but the young Sligo player got to it before Sava and looped it to the back of the net. It was a tough ending to what was a good second half performance by United, in that period they had some excellent performances but none were better than Karl Bermingham who was brilliant from start to finish.

So what chances have we against Sligo Rovers next week in the EA Sports Cup on the strength of this performance? Well in the first half we probably showed them too much respect and didn’t take them on up front.  Had we not conceded that second goal at the start of the second half United showed that they well capable of going head to head with Sligo and I believe United will have learned a lot from this outing and are well capable of reversing the result.  Hopefully they will have a good support which wasn’t there for this game.  

Sligo Rovers: 1 Ciaran Kelly; 2 Alan Keane, 20 Jim Lauchlan, 4 Gavin Peers, 3 Iarfhlaith Davoren; 15 Joseph Ndo, 6 Richie Ryan, 8 John Russell (5 Danny Ventre 82), 11 Eoin Doyle (7 John Dillon 90); 18 Romuald Boco, 9 Matthew Blinkhorn (17 Mark McGoldrick 89).

Subs not used: 12 Conor O'Grady, 14 Nelson Vieira, 16 Derek Foran, 19 John Gibson.

Booked: Doyle (32).

Monaghan United: 1 Gabriel Sava; 2 Aidan Collins, 4 Conor McMahon, 5 Brian Gartland, 3 Shane Grimes; 7 Cathal O'Connor (12 Karl Bermingham HT), 6 Don Tierney (17 Aidan Lynch 66), 8 Alan Byrne, 11 Barry Clancy, 9 Sean Brennan; 10 Philip Hughes (14 Darragh Hanaphy 83).

Subs not used: 13 Anthony Costigan, 15 Stephen McCrossan, 16 David Quirke, 18 Darren Coleman.

Booked: McMahon (41), Byrne (53), Gartland (74).

Referee: Padraig Sutton .