Wanderers hit for six by St. Pats

St Patricks Athletic 6 (Billy King 23 & 77, Jason McClelland, Ben McCormack 55, Sam Bone 57, Paddy Barrett 62) Bray Wanderers 0

Richmond Park, FAI Cup, 23 July 2021

Wanderers’ prospects in a Cup match at Inchicore this season were not great, but a masterful switch of format by Pats manager Stephen O’Donnell midway through the first half, together with a brace of early second-half goals, contributed to their worst Cup result since joining the League.

While the opening play suggested teams that were reasonably well matched, when Billy King and Jason McClelland swapped right for left they made an immediate impact on the Bray defence, and within minutes King had opened the scoring with a powerful shot that Brian Maher reached but couldn’t stop.

The home team continued to pile on the pressure and were rewarded with a 2-0 half-time score when McClelland headed King’s cross into the near corner.

Bray were looking like pulling one back in time added when Mark Byrne dropped Brandon Kavanagh’s short flag-kick into the Pats goal area, but the attack ended with the award of a free out.

An early effort after the restart saw Darren Craven’s shot rebound off the back of Richie O’Farrell, and Dylan Barnett drew a fine save from Vitezslav Jaros. But two goals within two minutes, Ben McCormack from an Ian Bermingham cross and Sam Bone following loose play in front of Maher’s goal, took the heart out of the Seagulls.

Bray substitute Gary Shaw had a decent shot at goal with a quarter of an hour left, but found Varos in his line of fire.

Any chance of a late recovery was quenched when Paddy Barrett, after losing and then regaining possession, fired home just after the hour mark, and King’s second, following the kind of crossfield pass that had paid dividends already in the game, was icing on the cake.

St Patricks Athletic: 1 Vitezslav Jaros; 4 Sam Bone, 29 Paddy Barrett, 5 Lee Desmond, 3 Ian Bermingham (c); 15 Billy King, 6 Jamie Lennon, 16 Alfie Lewis, 11 Jason McClelland; 18 Ben McCormack; 12 Matty Smith

Substitutes: 21 Barry Murphy (gk), 25 Josh Keeley (for Jaros, 80), 2 John Mountney (for Desmond, 64), 7 Robbie Benson, 8 Chris Forrester, 17 Darragh Burns, 31 Kian Corbally (for Lewis, 77), 38 Thomas Lonergan (for King, 80), 39 James Abankwah

Booked: Bone (11)

Bray Wanderers: 1 Brian Maher; 4 Andrew Quinn, 5 Aaron Barry (c), 15 Daniel Jones; 8 Mark Byrne; 9 Joe Doyle, 14 Richie O’Farrell, 16 Darren Craven, 3 Dylan Barnett; 11 Brandon Kavanagh, 28 Sam Verdon

Substitutes: 25 Kian Clarke (gk), 30 Jack Ross (gk), 10 Gary Shaw (for Byrne, 61), 12 Dean O’Shea (for Barnett, 78), 17 Luka Lovic (for Kavanagh, 61), 18 Sean Callan (for Quinn, 78), 19 Darragh Lynch, 22 Steven Kinsella (for Verdon, 70), 24 Cian Maher

Booked: Jones (32)

Referee: John McLoughlin

Match Report: Mícheál Ó hUanacháin