League Report: Derry City 0 - 0 Limerick

DERRY City and Limerick played out a dismal scoreless draw at the Brandywell on an Easter Monday where neither team seemed to want to win the game.

The main talking point before the start of the game was the omissions of both Rory Patterson and Shane McEleney from the home team’s match day squad with neither player reported to be carrying any injuries.

Playmaker Patrick McEleney was also on the bench replaced by the inexperienced Raymond Foy.

The match itself was almost completely devoid of noteworthy action or intensity and was as poor an advert for the league as seen in a number of years. It was in fact very reminiscent of an early preseason friendly at times and the home supporters made their feelings quite clear throughout and especially at the end of the game.

In truth, neither goalkeeper had anything to do for the entire duration of the first half as the play was focused on scrappy play in the middle of the park with both sides giving the ball away to the other on a regular basis.

There were some tame long range efforts that went wide from Tracy and Agyemang for the visitors and an Enda Curran shot that was well over the bar for the home side but other than that there was very little to report.

The second half improved slightly as far as the tempo went but still neither side could muster up anything resembling quality football. The introduction of former City frontman Tam McManus for the visitors brought a warm round of applause from the home fans and in the 74th minute a slip from Roddy Collins allowed Rory Gaffney to get by him and his cross was almost turned in by the ex-Hibernian striker.

A minute later at the other end, Michael Duffy was sent clear down the right but his shot only found the side netting. The introduction of Patrick McEleney for Derry was the catalyst for some quality finally being added to the match and in the 80th minute his superb cross found the head of Ryan Curran who could only manage to head the ball straight at Barry Ryan. And that was just about the height of the action.

Stuart Taylor seemed to be reasonably happy to settle for a point whilst Roddy Collins would surely have expected more from his men in a home fixture against one of the league’s less fancied outfits. There seems to be a few problems in the Derry camp at the moment and it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

Derry City: Gerard Doherty; Roddy Collins, Cliff Byrne(c), David Elebert, Aaron Barry (Dean Jarvis 67); Michael Duffy, Barry Molloy, Raymond Foy, Mark Stewart (Patrick McEleney 70), John Paul McGovern (Ryan Curran 55); Enda Curran.
Subs not used: Ciaran Gallagher (gk), Mark Timlin, Tony McNamee, Cormac Burke.

Booked: None.

Limerick FC: Barry Ryan; Shaun Kelly, Stephen Folan, Sam Oji, Robbie Williams; Shane Tracy, Prince Agyemang (Tam McManus 59), Shane Duggan, Jason Hughes, Rory Gaffney; Ross Mann (Darragh Rainsford 69).
Subs not used: Shane Cusack (gk), Val Feeney, Colm Murphy, Shane Walsh, Tony Whitehead.

Booked: Gaffney (77).

Referee: Paul Tuite

Attendance: 1,000 (estimate).

ExtraTime.ie Man of the Match: Patrick McEleney (Derry City) - He only came on in the 70th minute but was the only player on show who showed any quality.