‘It was like the world stopped' – Stephen Kenny stunned by ‘surreal' moment that swung St Pat's vs Galway United
STEPHEN KENNY reckoned time stopped still as St Pat's survived a scare to get back to winning ways.
The Saints bounced back from their last-gasp defeat against Bohs to move a point clear at the top of the table
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The former Ireland manager was relieved to secure another home win
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Old foe John Caulfield wasn't too harsh on his striker
First-half goals from Kian Leavy and Zach Elbouzedi were enough to claim the points as they withstood Galway's fight-back even after they had been reduced to 10 men following the sending off of Axel Sjoberg.
But it could have been very different if Moses Dyer had managed to convert Jeannot Esua's cross on the half-hour mark.
Dyer looked so certain to tap Esua's cut-back home that some on the Galway bench were already celebrating but the New Zealand striker failed to get a clean connection which allowed Joseph Anang to save.
Within three minutes, St Pat's took the lead.
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And Kenny said: "It could have been different actually, there's no doubt about that. I thought we dominated the ball and were very good.
'But that chance, it was surreal because it was like the world stopped for a minute. Everything just stopped. It was an almost surreal moment and then we go up the other end.'
John Caulfield was at a loss to explain how the league's top scorer with seven goals had not put that chance - and other less clearcut opportunities - away.
He said: 'You don't ask a centre forward, he knows what happened to be fair to him.
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'At 0-0 we had the best chance of the match. We were dangerous on the counter but we probably were standing off too much and they boxed us in.
'Goals change games and it's 0-0. Moses would score that in his sleep all day long.
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'Leavy, who is doing really well, caused problems and a simple one-two, we never tracked him and it's a soft goal.
'Pat's were on the front foot and the second goal took a wicked deflection. At half time we said we'd give it a go and on another night Moses might have got three.
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'We put them under a lot of pressure even before the sending off but the ball didn't seem to fall for him.
'In the second half we were really good and threw everything at them. If we scraped one back we felt we'd have a chance to get something out of it, but it wasn't to be.'
For Kenny, seeing out the game was particularly welcome given
He said: 'For us to have gone two points clear last week, it wouldn't have been a vintage performance but certainly we should have been good enough to see it out.
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'We were kicking ourselves, it should have never happened.
'Instead of feeling good about ourselves and positive all week going into Galway, I suppose it was post-mortems and analysis, because you can't have that.
'We're just delighted now to beat Galway because we knew they are tough opponents and have a very effective way of playing and cause you problems.'
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