13th December 2002 - eircom League Division One
by Daniel McDonnell at St Mels Park
Enda Kenny 54
Alan Clarke 83
Robbie Brunton s/off 70
Well, at least it was well timed. A dream for any kind of media. There's a headline just waiting to be written on this one. Something along the lines of "Friday the 13th horror show from Dundalk", or something equally predictable given the permutations associated with the particular date.
Certainly, you can't think of any venue more suitable than Athlone, or more specificlally, St Mels Park for a tale of gruesome murder, beheadings and the like. Sanded terraces, scary toilet facilities and crackly PA. Frightening. The essence of Division One. Worst of all though, Dundalk never looked like winning.
This was crap
Dempsey and McCrystal were dropped, replaced by Connolly and McCartney respectively. Robbie Brunton came back into the side at left back, with David Hoey moving into central midfield alongside Lawless with Kavanagh moving to the right.
A quick summary,
First half - neither side played well. No real chances of note, although the game was reasonably even. Ward did look dangerous when given the ball but the front pair were static. Youngsters Watters and McCartney did well, although Watters showed inexperience after an extremely promising run opened gaps in the Athlone defence. With Reilly unmarked, he instead opted to shoot wildly from twenty five yards. Calmer head would possibly have created goal.
Second half - Dundalk were rubbish, Athlone lifted it only slightly. Midfield of Hoey and Lawless completely ineffective. Athlone on top, but get lucky when attempted cross sails over Connolly, leaving the Dundalk defence looking puzzled. Ineffective Kavanagh replaced by Duffy, slight improvement. Ineffective Reilly replaced by Malone. Off the ball Brunton goes a little mad, the linesman waves the flag a bit and seconds later Robbie is making the long walk to the dressing room.
With ten men, Dundalk have no option but to go for it. Don't really threaten, but working hard, until finally the ball breaks to Malone in the penalty area who hits a cracking first time effort. Underside of the crossbar. Haylock can't get to rebound, Ward does but scuffs it goalwards where an Athlone defender clears it off the line. Cruel luck, but it shouldn't have taken so long to create a chance of note. Dundalk players beginning to show a hunger which was sadly lacking earlier in the match.
Shortly afterwards, Watters misjudges clearance, Lawless loses control. One through ball and Athlone are away in the space vacated by Brunton. Alan Clarke cooly converts past the onrushing Connolly who aside from picking the ball out of the net twice had little else to do.
Torturous stuff. Little to talk about, yet so much you could say.
In fact, drawing a line under this game is probably the best thing you can do, and you get the feeling it's not the last time that will be said this season. The younger players are not to be blamed, they gave their all. The more experienced players are really doing their own talking in their performances, which really don't befit those of FAI Cup medal holders and UEFA Cup participants.
Remember the 4-0 against Rovers, the Cup Final win, the Croatian trip and some of the other wonderful memories we have. That all happened in 2002, a year we look set to end with performances of this stature, in this kind of venue.
Let's never speak of this game again.....
1 John Connolly 6
Dodgy for first goal??
2 Sean Watters 6
Inexperience showed, but still quite a prospect
3 Robbie Brunton 4
Stupidly sent off
4 Paul Curran 7
Not to be blamed
5 Alan McCartney 7
Performed adequately.
6 Ciaran Kavanagh 5
Not good at all on right side of midfield.
7 David Hoey 5
Game passed him by
8 Martin Reilly 4
Had another stinker
9 Gary Haylock 5
Only worked hard in patches. Better than Reilly, but still not good enough
10 Chris Lawless 5
One good run, but otherwise ineffective.
11 David Ward 6
As so often before, good first half, bad second half.
SUBS
14 Andrew Duffy 6 for Kavanagh
Ok in difficult circumstances
12 Cormac Malone for Reilly
May be worth a start against Kildare on Thursday night.