Galway United substitute Frantz Pierrot proved the Premier Division match winner as the Tribesmen defeated Derry City 2-1 at Eamonn Deacy Park.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the game, the major talk was the absence of the league’s current top goalscorer, Michael Duffy, while James McClean was also ruled out.<\/p>\n
With the injury news, the Candystripes, who were winless in their last four SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division fixtures, looked less potent.<\/p>\n
Galway United saw an opportunity to pounce, and that they did.<\/p>\n
On a dull evening on Corribside, the first opportunity of the game landed at the feet of City\u2019s Brandon Fleming, but his effort went narrowly wide of the post.<\/p>\n
The Candystripes had the lion’s share of possession in the first 10 minutes, but it was the Tribesmen who struck first, thanks to a wonder strike by David Hurley in the 16th minute.<\/p>\n
Hurley\u2019s original free-kick was blocked down, before he cannoned a long-distance right-footed volley into the corner of the net to give United the lead in front of a buoyant home crowd.<\/p>\n
John Caulfield\u2019s outfit grew in confidence following the opener as a penalty shout on former United man Rob Slevin was waved away, while an Aaron Bolger strike was well saved by Eddie Beach.<\/p>\n
At the other end of the pitch, Derry struck the post before the break, but Galway went into the interval in front.<\/p>\n
In the second period, Derry stepped up a gear, creating a few more openings in the attacking third.<\/p>\n
Firstly, Darragh Markey tested Evan Watts before James Clarke found the United net in the 63rd minute.<\/p>\n
Clarke demonstrated superb running power to drive into the opposition penalty area and slotted a low effort into the bottom corner to bring the sides level.<\/p>\n
Galway looked to be under pressure, but, from a counter-attack, they manufactured a glorious opportunity with 20 minutes to go. Stephen Walsh impressively slid substitute Ed McCarthy through on goal, but he was unable to find a way past the onrushing Beach.<\/p>\n
Chances continued to arrive, in particular for Dipo Akinyemi, who would have been disappointed not to hit the target in front of goal after a moment of quality from Clarke.<\/p>\n
As the game was on a knife-edge, the impact of United substitute Pierrot made the crucial difference and sent Derry home empty-handed.<\/p>\n
The former Drogheda striker firstly had a penalty claim waved away, before he showed his finishing instinct in the 82nd minute to send the United faithful into a frenzy.<\/p>\n
Matty Wolfe played the ball to Pierrot towards the right side of the penalty area, and it was a superb strike from a tight angle which secured all three points for the hosts.<\/p>\n
Galway United: Watts: Devitt, Parker (Williams 88), Brouder, Facchineri; Bolger, Barratt (Wolfe 64), Keohane (McCarthy 64), Twardek (Lomboto 80); Hurley, Walsh (Pierrot 80).<\/p>\n
Derry City: Beach; Fleming, Cotter (Barr 82), Bannon, Stott, Slevin; O\u2019Reilly, Olayinka, Markey (Winchester 58); Clarke, Akinyemi (Thomas 82).<\/p>\n
Referee: Neil Doyle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Galway United substitute Frantz Pierrot proved the Premier Division match winner as the Tribesmen defeated Derry City 2-1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-380964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}