Sinnott's strike earns United a share of the spoils

Galway United 1

WITH Galway United taking on the bottom side, a team which has failed to win a home game so far this season, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Tommy Dunne’s side would be in for a relatively easy night.

But a scrap for survival can be just the medicine a side needs, to heal a poor run of form, a run which has seen Tony Cousins men manage to pick up just nine points from 20 games, including one victory, which goes back to their first game of the season against Wexford Youths, all the way back in March.

That determination, along with a very flat opening half for United saw the Midlands club secure a much needed point, but in reality they probably deserved all three.

An early second half goal from Kaleem Simon put Longford in front, before a fine Paul Sinnott strike 13 minutes later equalised matters, in a game where both sides will be annoyed not to have picked up the valuable three points on offer.

Both sides were slow to get going in the opening few minutes, and despite some fine use of the ball, neither side really threatened in front of goal.

Longford had the opening chance of the match on seven minutes when Kealan Dillon played in a fine through ball which fell into the path of Don Cowan, but his attempted chip shot from the edge of the box was well blocked by Conor Winn.

Dillon and Cowan continued to cause havoc in the Galway defence, linking up well down the left wing, but their menacing crosses were quickly snapped up by Steven Walsh and Colm Horgan.

United , despite looking good on the ball were struggling to make much headway in the Longford half, creating next to nothing in the opening 20 minutes, before Ryan Connolly came close to opening the scoring soon after with a decent curling effort coming agonisingly close to hitting the top left corner, before just drifting wide.

The visitors  were beginning to get a little more creative now, and a good example of this was when Connolly picked out a wonderful cross field ball which found Vinny Faherty, who tried to flick it back for any of the onrushing midfielders, but it came to nothing when none of the midfielders anticipated it.

On the half hour mark, Longford had the best chance of the match so far when a fine Rhys Gorman free found the head of Yann Mvita, who played the ball into the path of Eddie Dsane, whose shot from close range hit the corner of the upright.

Full coverage in this week's Connacht Tribune.