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Saints edge past Hoops to extend lead

Friday 27th April 2007, 10:25 pm

Darragh Maguire, Saint Patrick's Athletic.

Photo by Tom Carey.

Saint Patrick's Athletic extended their lead at the top of the eircom League to two points and opened the gap to third placed Cork City to nine after they won 2-1 against Shamrock Rovers at Richmond Park tonight. Despite trailing 2-0 in the latter stages, Rovers like last week, got a goal back to make the end far from comfortable for the home side.

Joseph Ndo returned after injury for the Saints and made an almost immediate impact as he created the opening goal of the contest after 25 minutes. Ndo's skill tore apart the Rovers defence before he played in Anthony Murphy and against the still wrong footed defence, Murphy lashed home his fifth goal of the season.

Before that, Barry Ryan had to make a smart save in the home goal to deny David Cassidy while Mark Quigley hit a poor effort from a good position at the Rovers goal in the same period.

Just one goal remained between the sides as Gary O'Neill and Quigley hammered efforts against the Hoops' woodwork.

Rovers had the perfect opportunity to level midway through the second half but after Tadhg Purcell had been brought down by Keith Fahey in the box, Andy Myler fired the resulting penalty against Ryan's post.

Darragh Maguire headed Pats 2-0 in front in the closing ten minutes as he connected with Fahey's floated corner kick.

However, Rovers got a goal back in the closing couple of minutes as Purcell poked the ball home after a low cross.

A second was beyond the Hoops though with the Saints maintaining their amazing start to the season.

St. Patrick's Athletic : Ryan, Brennan, Paisley, Maguire, Mulcahy, Murphy (Frost 70), Kirby, Ndo, Fahey, O'Neill, M Quigley (C Foley 89).
Shamrock Rovers : Murphy, G O'Brien, Clarke, Price (Ryan 88), Ferguson, Danny O'Connor, Duffy (Purcell 88), Pender (Dave O'Connor 65), Cassidy, Myler, Rowe.