Bohemians 0-2 Dundalk
SSE Airtricity League Premier Division
By Jamie Moore @ Dalymount Park
Dundalk stretched their lead at the top of the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division to four points with this win at Dalymount Park on Friday night.
Daryl Horgan was the match winner for the league Champions, with an excellent free kick and a quite fortunate second.
Bohemians have now lost three league games in a row, and not scored in 390 minutes of football.
The main incident in the game came nine minutes before half-time, Bohs gave the ball away which saw Ronan Finn go through on goal, Dave Mulcahy dragged him down but ref Rob Harvey only gave a yellow card when it looked like an obvious goal scoring opportunity.
Defender Lorcan Fitzgerald may have got across to cover, but it was a definite chance for Finn to score, and Dundalk were calling for a red card.
Bohs couldn’t have had too many complaints had Mulcahy been sent off.
Dundalk didn’t care though, Horgan stepped up to curl the resulting free-kick into the top corner from 25 yards, a brilliant goal in a game for few clear chances.
Bohemians had been on top up to that point.
Fitzgerald’s curling corner was headed goal-wards by Derek Prendergast, a combination of Gary Rogers and Brian Gartland blocked it out for a corner.
Keith Buckley then slipped in Kurtis Byrne, his shot was straight at Rogers.
Another piece of brilliance by Horgan created the second goal, he skipped by Derek Pender before chipping his cross to the back post to sub John Mountney, he headed it back across the face of the goal to the waiting Horgan, who finished from close range with the help of a deflection off either Prendergast or goalkeeper Delany.
We’ll await video replays to see got the telling last touch.
Bohs tired to respond, Paddy Kavanagh’s dipping effort dropped just over the crossbar before sub Mark Quigley’s header was blocked on the line after another excellent Fitzgerald corner.
But Dundalk held on for a comfortable victory.
We'll have re-action from both managers on Now That's What I Call Sport on Sunday morning from 9am. Bohemians – Dean Delany; Derek Pender, Derek Prendergast, Dave Mulcahy, Lorcan Fitzgerald; Daniel Byrne (Anto Murphy, 83) , Roberto Lopes (Jake Kelly, 72); Paddy Kavanagh (Mark Quigley, 72), Keith Buckley, Ayman Ben Mohamed; Kurtis Byrne.
Dundalk – Gary Rogers; Sean Gannon, Andy Boyle, Brian Gartland, Dane Massey; Chris Shields, Robbie Benson (Paddy Barrett, 86); Darren Meenan (John Mountney, 61), Ronan Finn, Daryl Horgan; Dave McMillan (Michael O'Connor, 88).
Ref – Robert Harvey.
