Derry City 2 St Patrick’s Athletic 2
Derry City were denied recording their first home win of the season by Billy King, the St Pat’s hitman producing a superbly headed goal in the 84th minute at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium.
In what proved a very entertaining affair, a share of the spoils was probably a fair result in the end with both sets of players credited with quality performances.
Indeed, having dominated the early exchanges, St Pat’s were rewarded for their persistence when opening the scoring in the 22nd minute.
That strike was fashioned by a John Mountney corner, which the Derry defence had failed to deal with.
Nathan Gartside made an attempt to punch the ball clear, but the goalkeeper could only punch it high into the air and when it dropped onto the head of Pat’s defender Lee Desmond he directed the ball home with a neat back-header.
Derry levelled matters five minutes later when full-back Ronan Boyce appeared to be dragged down by a defender following a corner, before he managed to poke the ball home from close range.
Pat’s were presented with a superb chance to move back into the driving seat in the 35th minute but Robbie Benson opted for power when blazing his shot over the Derry crossbar.
In what was an end -to-end affair, Derry striker David Parkhouse went close to giving the home side the lead in the 58th minute as he turned Desmond inside out but failed to hit the target with his parting shot.
Billy King set Ryan Coughlan up with a superb scoring chance in the 62nd minute but the Pat’s striker failed to take advantage when driving the ball over the crossbar.
And Derry then stunned their visitors in the 68th minute when Joe Thomson scored with a superb thunderous strike from 20 yards.
Patching had delivered a free-kick into the danger area and when the ball was beaten out into the path of the former Celtic midfielder, he sent the ball screaming low into the net giving goalkeeper Vít?zslav Jaroš no chance.
St Pat’s battled their way back into the game when netting a deserved equaliser in the 84th minute.
And it was a superbly-timed cross by sub Ben McCormack whose delivery found the head of King and he made no mistake when unmarked inside the Derry danger area.
Derry could so easily have had the final say in the 90th minute when James Akintunde weaved his way into the St Pat’s penalty area but he dragged his shot wide of the target he really should have done better.
Derry City: Gartside; Boyce, Toal, McJannet, Coll; Harkin, Thomson (Fitzgerald, 90); Patching, Akintunde, Lafferty (Malone, 75); Parkhouse (Cole, 81).
St Patrick's Athletic: Jaros; Bone, Barrett (McCormack, 79), Desmond; Mountney, Lewis (Melvin-Lambert, 70), Forrester, Griffin (Bermingham, 34), Benson, Coughlan, King.
Referee: R. Harvey (Dublin).
