2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Barry Landy)
Kevin Doherty hailed his team's best performance of the season as Drogheda held onto top spot in the Premier Division with a stalemate at United Park. For the second time this season, Drogheda and St Patrick's played out a scoreless draw. When you include two identical results between the sides last season, four of the last meetings between these teams have finished scoreless.
At least this time, it might not be all that surprising that the sides couldn't be separated. They began the day and ended it in first and second place. "I think that's our best performance of the season, I really do," Doherty said.
"And we've had some great results. I thought we were absolutely brilliant from start to finish." Despite taking to the field less than 72 hours after a gruelling match against the champions Shels, Doherty picked the same starting XI again.
The Drogs saw only 23% of the ball against Damien Duff's team and spent most of their night chasing the Reds around the United Park pitch. But the Drogs manager did not see reason to change things. "I knew the lads would be alright," he added.
“Sometimes teams change for the sake of changing.” But it was the Saints failure to create that left Stephen Kenny disappointed post-match. "We wanted to be better than we were.
Drogheda were effective," he said. "In the previous game, at home, we created a lot of chances. But not tonight.
" Kenny's predecessor as Republic of Ireland boss, Heimir Hallgrimsson, was in the stands watching on. The Ireland boss saw a game that was hotly contested but lacked in quality in an attacking sense. The Drogs were the better side throughout, with Thomas Oluwa and Warren Davis asking questions of the Pat's backline.
Their best chances fell to Owen Lambe and Shane Farrell in the first half. Lambe missed the target but Farrell forced a save from Joseph Anang with a clever chipped effort. Davis might have had a penalty late on when he went down under Grivosti's challenge but ref Kevin O'Sullivan was unmoved.
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