Mason Melia hits fine double but Waterford earn 2-2 draw with St Pat's

The 42

23-05-2025

St Patrick's Athletic 2
Waterford 2
Paul Buttner reports from Richmond Park
CONAN NOONAN SALVAGED a deserved point for Waterford with a late equaliser in this thrilling roller coaster at Richmond Park.
Mason Melia's brilliant first half brace looked to have got St Pat's back to winning ways after Monday's 4-0 mauling at Shamrock Rovers.
But having taken an early lead, John Coleman's Blues came to Inchicore to play and got their reward through the impressive Noonan 10 minutes from time.
When Grant Horton's deep cross wasn't cleared, the ball ran for midfielder Noonan who rifled a low shot to the corner of Joseph Anang's net from a tight angle.
Poor defending was the hallmark of St Pat's defeat in Tallaght and they carried that into this game to find themselves behind as early as 70 seconds.
Blues' goalkeeper Stephen McMullen's clearance wasn't dealt with as Saints' skipper Joe Redmond's header came off the back of Barry Baggley's head.
Are you even surprised?😮‍💨
Mason Melia turns the game around at Richmond Park! pic.twitter.com/1B9htPVtC0 — League of Ireland (@LeagueofIreland) May 23, 2025
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Noonan hooked the loose ball into the St Pat's penalty area where Tommy Lonergan initially miss-controlled it.
The danger remained when Sean Hoare failed to clear with the ball falling to Horton.
His shot came back off St Pat's Sjoberg to tee up Tommy Lonergan, who scored in winning the FAI Cup with St Pat's in 2023, to calmly slip it past Anang.
Clearly rattled, St Pat's surveyed going 2-0 down from Waterford's second corner of the game when the totally untracked Rowan McDonald bounced his header over.
With St Pat's continuing to struggle to get a foothold in the game, Anang rescued them with a stunning save eight minutes later when tipping over Noonan's acrobatic bicycle kick.
St Pat's needed something special to get them back into the game and it arrived on 28 minutes from 17-year-old Tottenham-bound Melia.
Redmond was given far too much space to advance from deep to get a shot away.
Melia showed his striker's instinct to cleverly nick the ball off Darragh Leahy, skip around him and drill it past McMullan.
If that was good, it got better four minutes later when Melia put Saints in front with another stunning strike.
Axel Sjoberg's long clearance, following a Waterford corner, was miss-controlled by James Olayinka on the halfway line.
Showing power and pace beyond his years, Melia bustled past the sluggish Olayinka to race through and place his shot to the corner of the net for a brilliantly composed fourth goal in four games and fifth of the season.
The game remained entertainingly open into the second half.
Jake Mulraney's free kick shaved a post for St Pat's at one end before Lonergan's header from a Noonan corner was saved by Anang at the other.
Another Noonan corner then almost brought an equaliser when coming off Hoare to strike a post before Waterford got their due reward on 80 minutes.
St Patrick's Athletic: Anang; Sjoberg, Hoare, Redmond, Breslin; Forrester (McLaughlin, 57), Baggley; Elbouzedi, Leavy (McClelland, 73), Mulraney (Power, 57); Melia (Keena, 76).
Waterford: McMullan; McDonald, Leahy, Burke; Horton, Olayinka, Glenfield (McMenamy, 85), Noonan, White (Dempsey, 63); Lonergan, Amond.
Referee: Rob Hennessy (Clare).