Hardly a classic evening for Dundalk but a gallant display nonetheless. A crowd of 35,000 people saw Rangers achieve a resounding 6-1 win. The scoreline was extremely flattering as Rangers scored two fortunate goals in the last minute. A good many of the 200 or so Dundalk supporters in the crowd believed that the hostile atmosphere got to the players and that a few of them freezed.
Pat Lawless was called into the action in the first two minutes making good saves from Smith and Henderson. After 3 minutes Dundalk nearly took the lead. A long goal kick from Lawless was misjudged by McKinnon and Turner sent Stokes in. Unfortunately Stokes rushed his shot from the edge of the box and shot weakly into the keeper’s hands. After 13 minutes Rangers scored the opener when Henderson capitalised on an error by Hannigan to slot the ball past Lawless. After 25 minutes Henderson made it 2-0 after 25 minutes with a 25 yard shot into the top corner. But Dundalk came back into the game as the half approached an end. On 41 minutes Dundalk won a penalty when McKinnon tripped up Tony O’Connell. Kevin Murray put Martin the wrong way with the penalty.
The Dundalk team that night was: Lawless, Murphy, Morrissey, Murray, Brennan, Millington, Turner, Stokes, Hannigan, O’Connell.
The fact that Dundalk put up yet another fighting display was scant consolation after a 3-0 defeat. Dundalk’s star man was 21 year old Andy Keogh, who was only making his fifth appearance in senior football and who had a great game against the new golden boy of Scottish football, Colin Stein. Again Pat Lawless played a starring role. One particular save from a Stein header showed how good a keeper he was. Rangers had to wait till the 44th minute before scoring their first. This came from Mathieson who made a strong run into the box before finishing with aplomb.
In the 63rd minute Ferguson set up Stein for number two and with 8 minutes remaining Stein scored his second with a stunning header.
