12th January
AET
Why oh why can we not finish teams off. Here we are now, faced with a trip to Limerick two days before a crucial relegation six pointer. We have found someone with a touch in front of goal but he limped off injured. Our best defender, David Capper went off injured and left us with the three stooges Crawley, Brady and Gollogly who together combined to see my blood pressure rise to the mid 200's with some quite astonishing howlers which gave Limerick scores of chances which they could not capitalise on. This ragged performance was not helped by two sendings off by referee Gerry Perry who needed to be escorted off the field. If some of the Dundalk fans had got hold of him he would have been given a police escort to Lourdes Hospital. His complete lack of sense was apparent giving some incredible frees and sending off two players he did not see commit a foul. I did not see the incident on 55 minutes which led to Derek Whyte and Noel Melvin being sent off but what I know is this. Neither the referee nor his linesman saw the incident. Tommy Lynch [still harbouring a grudge since his Waterford days ] got hold of the ref and pointed out his chosen culprits. The ref duly sent them off. My sources inform me reliably that Melvin was elbowed in the face. He then got up and hit the player who did so. Then Tommy Lynch charged in and clattered Melvin. Then a whole fracas started. Lynch was the main cause in my opinion but his seniority saw him get away scot free.
On to the match. Dundalk took the lead on 3 minutes. Ray Campbell jinked inside the box past two Limerick defenders and his shot was parried to Jumbo Brennan who blasted the rebound high into the net. Limerick equalised on 34 minutes when Perry awarded a penlaty after a challenge by Reddish. The Limerick player did not even go down but Lynch stroked away the resulting penalty. Dundalk were back in front 3 minutes from the break. Ciaran Dunne, chosen ahead of David Ward chased a long ball and challenged with the keeper. The ball fell to John Brennan who battled for the ball and eventually got hold of it and blasted it high into the net. Then it all went wrong. Brennan tweaked his hamstring and as he limped towards the sideline Limerick started a good attack up the left which saw a low cross finished clinically by Paddy Doyle. The goals stopped there, right on half time.
There were chances aplenty in a second half dominated by the ref but the majority fell Limericks way. Dundalk had now lost David Capper who was replaced by Michael Harte who had a good game. David Ward replaced Brennan. Limerick had a couple of good chances on the break. One was when Williams came for a 50-50 but lost it and Limerick tried to pass it in but just as the player was about to strike Soupy nicked in and prevented a certain goal . On another occasion a Limerick player was through but Michael Harte got back. Dundalk had free kicks and corners and Lee Thew could have scored a header and David Ward could have had a penalty but once extra time set in Dundalk fell asleep and were lucky not to lose. The spritely David Martin replaced the weary Ciaran Dunne but Dundalk could not break Limerick down in what turned out to be a disappointing 30 minutes of overtime.
Dundalk looked shaky without Capper and Brady and Gollogly struggled. Crawley was appalling while Lee Thew started well but faded. Ciaran Dunne was not up to the pace of the game but Michael Harte did well when he came on. Ward did not look too interested while Brennan looked like he could have scored again when injury cruelly prevented him from continuing. The Dundalk roadshow moves on to the in-form Shlebourne with a severely decimated squad.
I would give it to Ray Campbell because he played for 120 minutes with an ear injury. Honourable mention to Jumbo who probably would have won the game for us if he had not been injured.