Dundalk played terribly and were lucky to escape with a draw against a new look and spirited Longford side in Oriel Park this afternoon. In fact it would be true to say that if Longford had showed more calm in Dundalk's half they would have won . As expected David Ward got the nod ahead of Chris Hammond and Ward looked physically stronger than last year and was a lot more confident but on reflection there is no penetration in midfield from the Dundalk team and the need for a central midfielder is apparent. Steve Williams returned but was only troubled by a couple of poor backpasses by an out of sorts Kevin Brady. Longford were impressive and their front line caused Dundalk all sorts of problems and they showed more hunger in midfield where David Hoey, Paul Carlyle and Noel Melvin all had terrible games for Dundalk. Ray Campbell looked lively but could not break down a strong Longford defence. Dundalk's best move of the half down the left saw a Brian Byrne header well saved by Longford keeper Aidan Smyth. New Longford manager must have been pleased when Byrne had to retire at half time with an injury picked up 10 minutes beforehand.
Byrne was replaced by Chris Hammond who displayed a good first touch but while both he and David Ward cannot be blamed for the lack of supporrt from midfield neither posed a threat to the resolute Longford defence. Longford had several chances but the announcer failed to name the Longford team so who had those chances will remain a mystery. The crowd was disappointing but what can be expected for a League Cup game v Longford.
As the second half wore on and Shane Reddish replaced Carlyle Dundalk started to press more and Reddish was nearly the unlikely hero with a 25 yard volley touched over. David Ward's cross from the right before that nearly went in and it was scrambled away by the Longford keeper. The game ended tamely with little or no injury time. If they perform like that on Tuesday it could be another embarassing derby defeat for Dundalk
Only one player performed to his potential today and that was David Crawley. He posed more problems to the Longford full back than David Hoey and capped his performance with a fine goal saving tackle with 10 minutes left