The Airtricity League Premier Division entered it’s closing stages on Friday evening with penultimate Match Series 35. Champions Dundalk travelled to face toiling Cork City, and went down to an unexpected one nil defeat. Second place Shamrock Rovers made the very short journey to the Bowl where they secured a comfortable three nil victory over relegated UCD. The RTE 2 cameras brought live coverage of the Dublin Derby meeting of fifth place St Patrick’s Athletic and third place Bohemian which ended scoreless, guaranteeing the ‘Gypsies’ a place in Europe next season. The Inchicore side now trail fourth place Derry City, who play tomorrow, by just two points and the sides are set to meet in the Brandywell next Monday evening. Relegation play-off bound Finn Harps scored the only goal to defeat visitors Waterford in Finn Park.
On Saturday evening, Derry City consolidated their fourth place position and a place in Europe next season when they came from behind to defeat Sligo Rovers by two goals to one in the Showgrounds.
The postponed fixture between Derry City and St Patrick’s Athletic took place in the Brandywell on Monday the 22nd October and saw the ‘Candystripes’ go down to a three one defeat despite taking an early lead. With just one set of fixtures remaining, the Inchicore side now trail Derry City by two points. The pressure is now on for Friday night’s concluding fixtures when Derry City host Finn Harps while St Patrick’s Athletic visit champions Dundalk with that fourth place providing European Football next season.
.
P W D L F A G/D Pts
Dundalk [Champions] 35 26 5 4 69 18 51 83
Shamrock Rovers 35 22 6 7 59 21 38 72
Bohemian 35 16 9 10 45 27 18 57
Derry City 35 14 12 9 52 34 18 54
St Patrick’s Athletic 35 14 10 11 29 31 -2 52
Sligo Rovers 35 10 12 13 37 45 -8 42
Waterford 35 11 7 17 42 51 -9 40
Cork City 35 9 10 16 29 46 -17 37
Finn Harps 35 7 7 21 26 60 -34 28
UCD 35 5 4 26 23 78 -55 19
The Airtricity League Promotion/Relegation play-off series continued at Stradbrook this Friday evening with Cabinteely playing host to Drogheda United in the first leg of their play-off semi-final which ended in a one all draw. The second leg is set for United Park on Friday the 25th October 2019.
The English Championship resumed after the international break on Friday evening with Cardiff City playing out a one all draw with visitors Sheffield Wednesday. Goalkeeper Keiren Westwood was selected to start for the visiting ‘Owls’ but was injured during the warm-up and withdrawn. His all too frequent withdrawals from Ireland squads and his recent replacement by emerging net minding duo Mark Travers and Kieran O’Hara together with U21 goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher may signal the end of his international career.