Derry City 1

St. Patrick’s Athletic 1

A brilliant strike from Rory Patterson saved a point for Derry City against St. Patrick’s Athletic in their last game at Maginn Park.

The striker fired in from 20 yards to cancel out Killian Brennan’s opener with his fourth goal of the season as both teams finished the season relatively satisfied. While City did not get the third place finish they hoped for due to Shamrock Rovers’ win over Limerick, they had Europa League football secured two weeks ago, while St. Pat’s got the point they needed to avoid relegation.

It was St. Pat’s who took the lead on 26 minutes as Michael Barker got raced completely unnoticed into the City area and his low cross was perfect for the run of Killian Brennan, whose side-footed shot was deflected off Conor McDermott and past Eric Grimes into the City net.

Derry City could have been on level terms within two minutes of the restart as they began the second period with all guns firing. Aaron McEneff began the move and ended it as he found Dean Jarvis on the left and the defender swung in a brilliant cross which was headed clear but only to the right foot of McEneff, who hit a superb half volley which was brilliantly saved by Skowron who could only have seen it late.

But as brilliant as that save was, the St. Pat’s goalkeeper was picking the ball out of his net within 60 seconds as Rory Patterson received the ball on the edge of the area before swivelling and firing brilliantly across Skowron and into the net to make it 1-1.

Teams

Derry City: Eric Grimes, Conor McDermott, Dean Jarvis, Aaron McEneff, Barry McNamee, Harry Monaghan, Ronan Curtis (Ben Doherty 86’), Rory Patterson, Darren Cole, Lukas Schubert (Jamie McIntyre 69’), Aaron Barry.

St. Patrick’s Athletic: Lukasz Skowron, Michael Barker, Ian Bermingham, Gavin Peers, Conan Byrne, Graham Kelly, Christy Fagan (Paul O’Connor 65’) Killian Brennan, Lee Desmond, Kurtis Byrne, Billy Dennehey.

Referee: Rob Rogers.

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