Derry City suffer title blow as Frantz Pierrot brace scores crucial Drogheda win

Drogheda United 2, Derry City 1

Derry City's title hopes suffered a huge setback as a second half brace from Frantz Pierrot condemned the Candy Stripes to defeat at Weavers Park on Friday night.

With Shelbourne picking up a point at home to Sligo, it means Damien Duff's team have extended their lead at the top to four and not even Shamrock Rovers' 0-3 home defeat to St. Pat's will provide any consolation to Ruaidhri Higgins and his disappointed troops.

But Drogheda deserved their win, a victory that will go a long way to safeguarding this Premier Division status. And in Pierrot and strike partner Douglas James-Taylor they had two men who caused Derry trouble all night.

By contrast, too much of Derry's play was in front of a Drogheda rearguard who comfortably dealt with almost everything thrown at them. The first goal was always going to be crucial and once the home side had it, Drogheda managed the game well. Second half substitute Sean Robertson forced an own goal off Andrew Quinn late on but but home keeper Luke Dennison had precious little to do all evening.

With Will Patching missing out through injury, Higgins named three changes from the team that started against Shamrock Rovers as Patrick McEleney, Pat Hoban and Jacob Davenport came in for Patching, Adam O'Reilly and Ronan Boyce, the latter two named on the bench.

The changes meant a reshuffle at the back for Derry with Andre Wisdom shifting out to right back, Ciaran Coll partnering Mark Connolly in the middle and a first start in the red and white for Davenport at left back.

Having won only four of their last 14 league games away from Brandywell, Derry started impressively against a Drogheda side who were unbeaten in their last eight home games in the league. And central to that early control was McEleney.

Showing no ill effects from last week's penalty controversy, McEleney was the Derry's play making puppet master, knitting together everything good about the Candy Stripes' attacking play across the opening 45 minutes. Yet for all their impressive build-up, Derry managed to fashion only one real opening of note in the first half against a Drogheda side who always possessed a threat on the counter.

A couple of early snapshots from Drogheda's Conor Kane and Shay Brennan, and one from Michael Duffy, were the sum of the opening 15 minutes' goalmouth action.

Indeed it was Pat Hoban who came closest to breaking the deadlock on 25 minutes in, but the issue for Derry was it came at the wrong end as the forward's defensive header had his keeper sweating before clearing the crossbar and going behind.

With chances at a premium, Derry's best opportunity of the half came on 36 minutes when Danny Mullen, making his 50th appearance for the club, miscued a penalty area shot straight to the head of Hoban, loitering dangerously eight yards from goal. Hoban's reactions were superb, twisting to turn his header on target but unfortunately form the visitors to was straight at Dennison.

Derry were almost made to pay as Drogheda finished the half strongly with Brian Maher called on to make a superb point blank save from Frantz Pierrot's close range header two minutes before the break after Connolly appeared to have been pushed in the build up

With the sides still deadlocked at the break, it meant had failed to score in the first half of 23 of their 31 Premier Division encounters this season.

Normal service was resumed after the interval, Drogheda marginally shading the opening exchanges of the second period but it was Derry who created the first opening 12 minutes after the restart. Duffy was the creator, taking on and beating Elicha Ahui and his cross found Mullan 12 yards out but the forward's shot on the turn was blocked by a posse of defenders.

But just as Derry looked to be taking a stranglehold of proceedings a mistake from probably the most experienced player on the pitch gifted Drogheda the lead just after the hour mark. There looked little danger as Derry switched the ball left to right across their back four until it reached Andre Wisdom who appeared to be caught in two minds. His hesitation allowed Drogheda's on loan forward Douglas James-Taylor to pounce on his loose touch. The forward still had plenty to do but superb picked out strike partner Frantz Pierrot and with Maher stranded 20 yards from his goal, the big striker slid home a potential critical goal in the Premier Division title race.

A bad situation became critical eight minutes later as the home side doubled their lead and once against it was their twin strikers doing the damage. With Derry pressing, Drogheda turned over possession midway inside their own half. There was no immediate danger but as soon as Ciaran Coll was tempted into over committing himself by James-Taylor along the home right, the forward was away and into the space, getting his head up to perfectly pick out his forward partner Pierrot who crashed home the centre from six yards.

Derry were reeling and Ruaidhri Higgins response was instant, making a quadruple change as Sean Robertson, Colm Whelan, Ronan Boyce and Adam O'Reilly were introduced in an attempt to salvage something from the game.

The response was emphatic and it came from one of the newly introduced quartet as Robertson cut in from the right and flashed a fierce centre which Andrew Quinn could only redirect into his own net to resuscitate Derry's challenge with eight minutes remaining.

It wasn't enough and with Shelbourne edging another point clear at the top, only time will tell how costly this defeat proves.

Drogheda United: Luke Dennison, James Bolger, Andrew Quinn, David Webster; Elicha Ahui, Shane Farrell, Ryan Brennan, Conor Kane; Darragh Markey Luke Heeney, 77mins); Douglas James-Taylor, Frantz Pierrot (Adam Foley, 87mins).

Derry City: Brian Maher, Ciaran Coll, Ben Connolly (Ben McCourt, 87mins), Andre Wisdom, Jacob Davenport (Ronan Boyce, 71mins); Sadou Diallo (Adam O'Reilly, 71mins), Patrick McEleney, Paul McMullan (Sean Robertson, 71mins); Daniel Mullen (Colm Whelan, 71mins), Pat Hoban, Michael Duffy.

Referee: Rob Hennessy (Dublin).