Bray Wanderers 1
Galway United 0
A FIRST LEAGUE clean sheet of the season guided Bray Wanderers to third in the Premier Division table.
The shut-out came at the eighth time of asking – and with 10 men too – against a toothless Galway United who remain rooted to the foot of the table, and deservedly so on this evidence.
Gary McCabe, only behind Cork City’s Sean Maguire in the scoring charts, bagged the winning strike for the Seagulls when Aaron Greene nodded on Tim Clancy’s long ball and the midfielder nudged ahead of his man to push a weak shot goalwards. Winn meekly parried it and McCabe slid in to notch his seventh of the season.
McCabe could have had a penalty prior to that but referee John McLoughlin was not interested. United also had an appeal turned down when Hugh Douglas took a strong grip of Conor Melody’s jersey as he looked to shoot.
What had been a walk in the park hit a stumbling block midway through the second-half as Conor Kenna received his marching orders on 62 minutes for two bookable offences.
Galway, though, have only managed four league goals this season and it was painstakingly obvious as they trudged to another blank.
Wanderers celebrated a third victory in eight days on a night where they weren’t at their best but they didn’t have to be.
Bray Wanderers: Peter Cherrie; Hugh Douglas (Jamie Aherne, 43) (Derek Foran, 64), Tim Clancy, Conor Kenna, Alan Kehoe; John Sullivan, Mark Salmon; Keith Buckley, Gary McCabe (Ryan Brennan, 11), Dylan Connolly; Aaron Greene.
Galway United: Conor Winn; Lee Grace, Stephen Folan, Alex Byrne (Vinny Faherty, 70); Colm Horgan, Paul Sinnott (Gary Shanahan, 70), David Cawley, Marc Ludden; Conor Melody, Jesse Devers, Ronan Murray.
Referee: John McLoughlin.