31st January
Nothing like a nice jog on a Sunday. A tame game in Belfield with neither defence keen to give anything away. There was a couple of late chances for either side but speaking as a biased Dundalk fan I would say a draw was a fair result. The movement on the Dundalk bench suggested they were happy with the draw.
Dundalk made one change from Wednesday with Ciaran Dunne dropped and Tom McNulty recalled. McNulty slotted into the centre alongside Fortune with Campbell on the left and Jumbo on the right
Chances were few and far between in the first half. Mick O Byrne had a couple of efforts for UCD while Ryan saved well from Jumbo midway through the half, but really it was poor stuff with very little to write about.
The Dundalk back four were quite solid on the day with Noel Melvin putting in another good display. Paudie Gollogly was good while Shane Reddish and David Crawley played well defensively. Jumbo retired injured during the first half. He has only completed one full game for Dundalk since joining and he was replaced by Dunne. For Dundalk, Fortune and McNulty did well in the centre while Ray Campbell also put in a good display. David Martin was spritely in the second half and was taken down often by the UCD's gigantic defenders. David Ward was not on song at all while Dunne tried with no reward. The disappointing aspect of this display is that the individual performances defensively were excellent and can't be faulted. Going forward, nothing was working which is probably more to do with the UCD defence. The performances in defence reminded me of the Derry game but we could not get the lucky breaks we got up there today.
Dundalk dominated possession in the first 25 minutes of the second half with the midfield seeing a lot of ball but the killer pass could not be found.Eoin Bennis had the best UCD chances in the second half. With around 20 minutes remaining he headed over from a right wing cross and soon after he blasted over from a good goalscoring oppourtunity when the Dundalk defence was torn apart. UCD's best chance was with 6 minutes to go when a ball was slid past the Dundalk defence leaving Ciaran Martyn through but his shot was brilliantly saved by Williams. In the 90th minute Dundalk nearly grabbed another late winner. A free kick into the box bounced and bobbled inside the penalty box before it fell to Colin Fortune who hit his shot while off balance and it just rolled wide of the post. An agonising miss.
Dundalk seemed happy with the draw and while other teams have came away with less Dundalk really need to get points on the board because while every other team at the bottom was playing their 21st game of the season this weekend, we were playing our 22nd. Dundalk now have a Cup match to distract them before a crucial League game against beleaguered Sligo.
I'm not sure about this one, Melvin and McNulty were good but I find myself leaning towards Melvin again because he did not slip up in a confident display. I would not argue with those who would have picked any of the back four or McNulty.