UCD 1

Derry City 6

Michael Duffy was the hat trick hero as Derry City got back to winning ways at UCD last night.

The young forward took his tally for the season to ten goals as the Candy Stripes forgot the nightmare of Belarus to record their third straight league win.

It was superb stuff from Derry in Belfield, with Duffy the star of the show as Peter Hutton’s men looked capable of scoring each and every time they ventured forward.

UCD simply had no response to the attacking power of the team in red and white.

Derry opened the scoring 19 minute in when Duffy latched onto a superb lofted pass in behind the UCD defence from Mark Timlin. Duffy’s control was sublime and that allowed him to open up his body and place the ball beyond Conor O’Donnell for his eighth goal of the season.

It was 2-0 just four minutes before the break. The UCD defence attempted to pass the ball out but lost the ball to Josh Tracey who fed the ball to Patterson. Patterson skipped past James Kavanagh and drilled the ball left footed past O’Donnell into the bottom right hand corner of the net.

Derry City wasted no time in the second half as two goals in seven minutes ended this game as a contest.

Nathan Boyle was at the heart of the move leading to the goal as he drifted in from the wing before finding Michael Duffy, who almost casually curled the ball low beyond the dive of O’Connor from 18 yards for his second of the game.

Less than two minutes later Duffy was celebrating his hat trick and this time it was all down to Josh Tracey, who attacked Sean Coyne, beat him easily, and drilled the ball low across the face of the goal to the back post where Duffy was on hand to tap the ball into the net for his hat trick.

The home side pulled a goal back when they were awarded a free kick 25 yards from goal and Robbie Benson’s shot somehow squirmed through the grasp of Gerard Doherty and into the net.

Derry were dominant however and they could have added further goals through Barry McNamee, Patrick McEleney and Rory Patterson as they cut UCD open time and time again.

The pick of the bunch came in the 90th minute when Barry Molloy, in his testimonial year, swept the ball over O’Donnell and into the top corner to spark wild celebrations amongst the City players and fans.

But Derry weren’t finished there and Patterson wrapped it up deep into injury time, taking it past O’Donnell and firing it high into the net.

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