Tommy Lonergan on the double as St Patrick's Athletic sink Dundalk

It was a tale of two halves for St Patrick's Athletic as they kept marching on in the title race and all but ended Dundalk’s slim European hopes in the process at Richmond Park.

Despite being the better side in the first half, two shocking errors in Dundalk’s makeshift defence gifted St Pat's the lead after the restart. Two long balls from goalkeeper Dean Lyness bamboozled the Lilywhites defence, allowing last week’s cup hero Tommy Lonergan to find the net twice before the hour.

Daniel Kelly set up a grandstand finish when Archie Davies found him with a defence-splitting pass, but a stoppage-time penalty from birthday boy Mason Melia made it a sweet sixteen and moved the Saints to within six points of Shamrock Rovers with a game in hand, against Drogheda on Monday.

Jon Daly made three changes from his side’s FAI Cup quarter-final win away to Finn Harps, but it was Dundalk, smarting from their humiliation to Galway seven days ago, who were comfortably the better side in the opening half.

An early Kelly strike from distance was a signal of the visitors' intent and he came close again in the fifteenth minute when he was inches away from turning home a Davies cross.

Chris Forrester did have the ball in the net for the hosts in the fifth minute, but his celebrations were halted by the offside flag.

Daryl Horgan proved difficult to pick up as he enjoyed the freedom to roam around Richmond Park and he flashed a shot across goal before Kelly latched onto Pat Hoban’s pull back to force an excellent stop from Lyness.

Dundalk paid for their profligacy in front of goal five minutes after the break as Lonergan pounced on Muller’s indecision to finish neatly beyond Nathan Shepperd whose only action so far was to pick the ball out of the net.