Dundalk moved off the foot of the First Division table last night when they beat second-placed Galway Utd in Oriel Park.
The Louth club had lost their opening four games of the season and pressure was mounting on new manager John Gill to pick up his first win since taking over.
The former Dublin City boss duly delivered as his side completely outplayed the visitors from start to finish as the Terryland Park outfit failed to register a shot on target for the entire 90 minutes.
The match-winning goal came two minutes into stoppage time at the end of the first-half when man-of-the-match Philip Hughes shrugged off the challenge of Ronan Frawley to rifle past Alan Gough.
Five minutes beforehand the former Monaghan Utd striker was denied when Alan Keane hooked off the line with Galway’s Philip Reilly also firing inches wide before the break after an attempted lob of Neil Gallagher.
That would prove to be the visitors best chance of the half as Dundalk went on to completely dominate the second half.
Hughes and Peter Hynes both saw 30 yard efforts flash narrowly the wrong side of the post early on while the former was denied a second goal on 57 minutes when he blazed over from four yards out when it looked easier to score.
A second goal would have been no more than Dundalk deserved but they will be thankful to have finally got their season off the ground.
