12th November
When you are in a relegation battle and need the points you have to win your home games. When you are in a relegation battle and 0-0 with 5 minutes left you must go forward for the win. When you are in a relegation battle and need the points then you must take the players who are playing badly off. Three points that a four year old can understand. However Dundalk failed to do any of the three tonight as for the second time in five days they drew 0-0 with a Finn Harps side who are a lot better than their position suggest but suffer from having almost as bad a midfield as Dundalk have. Someone commented on the way out from the ground that Ronaldo would not score for Dundalk with that midfield. Lee Thew's job in midfield is the holding man. He done that very well tonight. Unfortunately two of our other midfielders [ Doolin and McNulty ] were also playing the holding role while the other midfielder [Soupy ] was playing on the left wing despite the fact he is right footed and one of the best right wingers in the League
Kevin Brady was dropped for tonight's encounter with David Crawley dropping to left back and Ray Campbell dropping back to midfield. This left the gap for Richard Sinden to make his debut. Sinden is a small man with plenty of pace. Tonight though, his touch let him down. He couldn't get a foot on the ball but could be a useful addition. David Capper had an unimpressive game at centre back. He seems prone to the odd howler and the thought in the crowd is that he is only a stop gap until Noel Melvin returns. Tom McNulty was assigned to right wing but spent most of the match in the centre of midfield leaving Shane Reddish to do all the work on the right side
Most of the chances in the first half fell to Harps. Steve Williams made a fantastic save from James Mulligan after 10 minutes when Mulligan was clean through. Mulligan was by far the best player on the pitch and after 30 minutes set up Paddy McGrenaghan who walked past the Dundalk defence and took it past Williams but he shot wide from an impossible angle. Dundalk's best chance in the half came when Peter Withnell made his one and only contribution of the match, raiding down the left wing and crossing it low into the path of Sinden but a Harps defender came out of nowhere to clear it. Harps defence is as the best in the league apart from the top two and did not look likely to concede a goal
The second half was similar in pattern to the first. James Mulligan was once again stopped from scoring a certain goal by the outstanding Williams. Harps made plenty of oppurtunites but never really got any shots in apart from Mulligan's two efforts. Dundalk's back four looked very brittle and the watching Pat Dolan must be chuckling at the prospect of his charges tearing them apart. Dundalk introduced Michael Harte for Tom McNulty and his contribution was immediate. With one moment of skill he took it past 4 Harps defenders in quick succession and had his shot saved by McKenna. Harte dazzled the crowd with this skill and has become an immediate favourite. Everyone was wondering why he didn't start. Mick Doohan gave the ball away soon in the Harps half and then followed a break of unbelievable pace which eventually saw a tame shot cleared off the line by Doohan. Dundalk did not look like scoring and the situation did not change when Ward replaced Withnell. Harps pushed forward and won numerous corners but the dominating Williams looked unfazed. Harps did squander a great chance with two minutes later when their attacker tripped over the ball in a crowded area when having a clear shot. Dundalk did not look worried about the situation and seemed happy enough to keep it at 0-0. Which it did.
This result was unacceptable. We have failed to score in half of our league games this season but our strikers cannot be blamed. Paul Doolin had a stinker tonight and so did two of his midfield partners. Only Lee Thew played well in midfield. Both of these games have ended with the home fans booing off their team, one set for not keeping up with the leaders and the other set because their team is in serious trouble of being relegated and the players don't look worried. At the end of the season we could regret results like this.
Only two contenders. Thew and Williams. Williams shades it purely because I feel sorry for him having to make so many wonderful saves in one match and still not get the credit he deserves