Defending champions Derry City make heavy weather of FAI Cup first round tussle with Athlone
Derry City 3 Athlone Town 0
Will Patching put Derry ahead
It wasn’t especially memorable, but Derry City did what they needed to be in the hat for the second round of the FAI Cup after a comfortable win over First Division side Athlone Town at the Brandywell.
Will Patching’s first-half penalty and injury time goals from Brandon Kavanagh and Michael Duffy sealed the victory for the holders.
Ruaidhri Higgins made seven changes to the team which defeated HB Torshavn in Thursday’s Europa Conference League tie, the most notable of which was a debut for goalkeeper Tadhg Ryan.
He had very little to do, however, as the game went as expected, with Derry dominating the ball from the start. They took a while to get going but finally opened the scoring on 22 minutes. Defender Noah van Geenan fouled Kavanagh and Patching stepped up to fire the Candystripes into the lead from 12 yards.
Athlone had a big chance to equalise when Michael Peprah’s cross from the left was skilfully brought down at the back post by Frantz Pierrot but, having done that right, he then blazed his shot high over the crossbar from 10 yards.
Cian Kavanagh could have doubled Derry’s lead early in the second-half when he was picked out by Sadou Diallo in the area, but he lost his boot as he brought the ball under control, and he let it go for namesake Brandon to shoot straight at the goalkeeper.
City were showing no real signs of adding to their lead and boss Higgins moved to change that, making four substitutions at once; Patrick McEleney, Duffy, Cameron Dummigan and Paul McMullan all coming on as the hosts sought the second goal that would have made for a more comfortable conclusion to the afternoon.
The team still failed to fire, though, and it wasn’t until
Read on belfasttelegraph.co.uk
