Drab encounter ends all square

St Patrick 1
Senglea Athletic 1

Senglea Athletic's aspirations of winning promotion to the Premier League in their centenary year suffered another blow last night after the Cottonera outfit could only manage a 1-1 draw against rivals St Patrick.

Yesterday's stalemate at the Centenary Stadium left Senglea in a mid-table position with only four points from four matches, eight points adrift of leaders St George's.

The match turned out to be a drab affair with little goalscoring opportunities in the opening 45 minutes.

Gradually, it was St Patrick who produced the better football after the interval but in the end they had to be content with a point that left them in the lower half of the table.

The opening half produced little entertaining fare for the few spectators present as play resulted mostly in midfield.

It was only in the 24th minute that the first goalscoring opportunity was recorded, Senglea striker Kenneth Abela was first on a cross but his header finished just over the bar.

Abela threatened again two minutes later when he again received the ball in an inviting position but failed to hit the target.

Two minutes later, the same Abela missed the target from an inviting position.

On the resumption, St Patrick took control of proceedings as they started to show a more direct approach in their attacking moves.

It was no surprise, then, that it was Borislav Giorev's side that managed to find the breakthrough on 66 minutes.

Thomas Caruana burst into the area but his run was halted illegally by Senglea defender Edon Bobolayefa. A penalty was awarded and Mark Tanti fired the ball past Senglea goalkeeper George Attard.

Senglea's reaction soon arrived as they started to pile up the pressure on the St Patrick defence. However, they had to wait until six minutes from time to save the match. Glenn Bonello's dangerous cross-shot found Abela in a dubious offside position, the assistant referee's flag stayed down, and the Senglea forward had little difficulty in deviating the ball home.

The goal sparked vehement protests by the St Patrick players but referee Clayton Pisani was unmoved and the goal stood.

St Patrick could have snatched the points at the death when two minutes into injury time when Thomas Caruana was unlucky to see his volley bounce on the crossbar.

St Patrick: F. Azzopardi, R. Cassar, A. Buttigieg, M. Zerafa, M. Tanti, G. Failla (S. Zerafa), T. Caruana, B. Fenech, C. Vassallo, C. Micallef, A. Buhagiar (G. Scerri).

Senglea ATHLETIC: G. Attard, D. Gauci, L. Attard, A. Gera (M. Marlow, L. McKay, C. Caruana, K. Abela, E. Azzopardi, E. Bobolayefa, G. Bonello, J. Borg (J. Fsadni).

Referee: Clayton Pisani.