Premier Division: St Patrick’s Athletic 3 (Edmondson 8, Leavy 17, Keena 23) Galway United 0
Regaining their goal touch, St Patrick’s Athletic blew Galway United away at Richmond Park to reignite their title challenge.
Dominant from the start, Stephen Kenny’s Saints raced to a 3-0 lead inside 24 minutes with goals from Ryan Edmondson, Kian Leavy and Aidan Keena. A stunned Galway manager John Caulfield responded with a triple substitution minutes later.
The result saw St Pat’s bounce back emphatically from last week’s 2-0 defeat at Bohemians, though wins for Alan Reynolds’ side and Shamrock Rovers coming from behind in Sligo means it’s as you where at the top.
It proved a night to forget for seventh-placed Galway, compounded by Waterford’s win at Derry City which puts them four points off the bottom.
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Hugo Da Cunha made his league debut in goal with Connor Gleeson on the bench. And the Portuguese goalkeeper was in action inside two minutes, getting down well to smother at the feet of Keena after a mistake by Wasiri Williams gifted possession to Jay McClelland.
But it was Galway who should have taken the lead just a minute later in a lively start to the game, Aaron Bolger blazing over after Stephen Walsh nodded down Lee Devitt’s cross.
Sloppy defending at the other end would lead to Saints’ going ahead on eight minutes.
The tenacity of Luke Turner was key as he initially won the ball off a sluggish David Hurley to then set up Edmondson to rifle low to the net for his ninth goal of the season.
Da Cunha then stood strong to parry a stinging drive from Edmondson but could do nothing to prevent St Pat’s ripping the visitors to shreds in doubling their lead on 17 minutes.
Hurley failed to clear resulting in Turner’s cross being knocked down by Edmondson for James Brown. The wingback dinked the ball into the path of Leavy, who swept home off his left-foot.
Further poor defending saw Galway concede again seven minutes later as St Pat’s recycled McClelland’s corner.
Da Cunha initially made a fine save from Brown’s drive but Keena pounced on the rebound to volley past the stranded keeper.
Caulfield brought on Matt Wolfe, Frantz Pierrot and new signing Leigh Kavanagh for Jimmy Keohane, Conor McCormack and Killian Brouder in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
But Da Cunha had to make further saves from Leavy and Edmondson before Jamie Lennon rattled the crossbar with a header from a corner as Galway survived conceding again before half-time.
The impressive Turner saw a shot tipped round a post by Da Cunha while Edmondson also had a couple of half chances as St Pat’s mined for more goals.
Improved after the break, Galway laboured to regain some sort of foothold in the game but never worried Danny Rogers between the home posts.
Back at the other end, 17-year-old Ryan Sheridan almost had the final say on his league debut when his shot was blocked by Devitt.
It hardly mattered, though, as St Patrick’s eased to victory.
ST PATRICK’S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Redmond, Hoare, Turner; Lennon; Brown, Leavy (Sheridan, 77), Palmer (Forrester, 84), McClelland (Breslin, 84,); Keena (Baggley, 68), Edmondson (Nugent, 77).
GALWAY UNITED: Da Cunha; Keohane (Wolfe, 28), Williams (Kazeem, 54), Facchineri, Brouder (Kavanagh, 28), Devitt; Hurley, McCormack (Pierrot, 28), Bolger, McCarthy; Walsh (Connolly, 72).
Referee: Kevin O’Sullivan (Cork).
Attendance: 4,318.
