Elsewhere, the early front-runners Bohemians drew 0-0 in Drogheda while Shamrock Rovers dropped two points away down in Waterford.<\/p>\n
The shock of the night saw Dundalk spoil the opening of a new stand at Tolka Park as Ciaran Kilduff\u2019s men beat Shelbourne 3-2 to stay fourth in the Premier Division.<\/p>\n
St Pat\u2019s manager Stephen Kenny spent the winter reassessing his tactical approach with trips over to his former Republic of Ireland assistant coaches, Keith Andrews at Brentford and John Eustace at Derby County.<\/p>\n
Gone is Kenny\u2019s preferred 4-3-3 with wingers sacrificed for a back-three that creates space up the pitch for Kian Leavy and Romal Palmer to exploit. It\u2019s working.<\/p>\n
In the past, Kenny regularly used his platform to highlight human rights issues and wrongdoings around world. The 54-year-old has found his voice again with Fifa president Gianni Infantino in his sights.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world of sports administration has never been known for its transparency,\u201d began Kenny\u2019s programme notes. \u201cFifa\u2019s inaugural peace prize presentation to US president Donald Trump at the World Cup draw, followed by the controversial stripping of Senegal\u2019s African Nations title won in Morocco, suggests that football\u2019s relationship with politics is reaching record levels \u2013 with Fifa\u2019s objectivity becoming increasingly questionable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sligo travelled to Dublin on a low ebb. Four defeats on the trot, one win all season, four goals scored and 16 conceded has John Russell\u2019s men second from bottom of the table. Worst of all, Jad Hakiki, their Ireland under-21 attacker, has been injured since February.<\/p>\n
Some luck fell the visitors way inside four minutes when Archie Meekison scrambled around Joe Redmond before the former Bohemians midfielder lofted a shot (or a cross) over Joey Anang and in off the butt of the post.<\/p>\n
It got worse for a Richmond Park crowd of 4,485, before it got much better, as Jason McClelland limped off to be replaced by Anto Breslin.<\/p>\n
![\"St](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/7BZYPNHWJRUCDFYRNVDYDBLZBE.jpg\")
St Patrick’s Athletic’s Ryan Edmondson celebrates scoring his side’s second goal. Photograph: Bryan Keane\/Inpho <\/p>\n
St Pat\u2019s barely broke stride and with Kian Leavy edging towards a career season, they equalised in the 12th minute as the unmarked Romal Palmer headed home Leavy\u2019s nifty cross.<\/p>\n
Leavy was covering every blade of grass, and the 24-year-old found himself with a choice midway through the first half: reward Palmer\u2019s lung-busting run down the left or give Ryan Edmondson the chance to bag his fourth goal of the campaign.<\/p>\n
Leavy picked out Edmondson but Sam Sargeant\u2019s trailing right boot denied a certain second for St Pat\u2019s. The English centre forward had another look moments later that drew a fantastic save from Sargeant.<\/p>\n
The damn eventually burst when Palmer and Barry Baggley combined down the left to give Edmondson a tap-in at the far post.<\/p>\n
St Pat\u2019s were rampant, Leavy in particular, as he roamed around the Sligo box trying to create a killer third goal.<\/p>\n
The otherwise excellent Baggley should have made it 3-1 before the break after swerving into the box only to shoot wide at close range.<\/p>\n
Palmer\u2019s quality ensured that Breslin could round Sargeant for the third goal six minutes into the second half. Last season, Kenny continually bemoaned the absence of his former Manchester City academy prospect. Everyone could see why when Palmer drew three Sligo defenders and slid a low pass for his wing back to race on to.<\/p>\n
The worry for St Pat\u2019s in a title race is squad depth. But the arrival of Aidan Keena, Jamie Lennon, Max Mata and Tom Grivosti in the last 20 minutes suggests they have enough bodies for the long road.<\/p>\n
This also gave Leavy and Palmer a well earned rest as news filtered through that Podge Amond had given Waterford the lead against Shamrock Rovers. It finished 1-1 at the RSC so Sligo avoided going bottom of the league.<\/p>\n
A good night in Inchicore was capped by Darragh Nugent scoring a fourth after Alex Nolan blasted the ball off his team-mate Oliver Denham. That about summed up Sligo\u2019s season so far.<\/p>\n
St Patrick\u2019s Athletic: Anang; Redmond, Hoare (Grivosti 72), Turner; Brown, Nugent, Baggley, McClelland (Breslin 14); Leavy (Lennon 72), Palmer (Mata 78); Edmondson (Keena 72).<\/p>\n
Sligo Rovers: Sargeant; Esua, Denham, McElory, Fitzgerald; McHugh (McDonagh 46), Quirk; McManus (Patton 64), Meekison, Nolan (Lynch 78); Traore.<\/p>\n
Referee: Kevin O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"League of Ireland Premier Division: St Patrick\u2019s Athletic 4 (Palmer 12, Edmondson 36, Breslin 52, Nugent 76) Sligo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,2539,43,14644,136434],"class_list":{"0":"post-380974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-league-of-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-sligo-rovers","13":"tag-st-patrick-s-athletic"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380974","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=380974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}