Adam O'Reilly handed St Patrick’s Athletic a European lifeline with an injury-time winner against Dundalk.
The Saints are now just one point behind the Lilywhites, whose third place status is looking particularly shaky with four games remaining.
Teenage forward Ryan O’Kane’s equaliser on the stroke of half-time looked to have earned them a valuable point. He cancelled out a typically brilliant Chris Forrester strike.
But when O’Kane was dispossessed by Sam Curtis inside the Saints area deep into injury-time, it set in motion a passage of play that ended with O’Reilly’s winner.
It was a first home defeat for the Lilywhites, but a fourth in their last six league games.
Their slump in form - and in goalscoring - coincides with the loss of striker Patrick Hoban to injury.
Since his early exit against Bohemians, they’ve managed just five goals in six games, compared to 36 goals in 25 before the injury.
O’Kane did his best to plug the gap last night, as he won the early battles with young St Pat’s defender Curtis during a promising opening by the hosts.
With 11 minutes on the clock, O’Kane had the crowd on its feet with a lovely piece of skill to turn Curtis, but his shot narrowly cleared the crossbar.
Curtis, of course, would end up having the last laugh.
All Dundalk’s positive early work was for nothing when a moment of madness by centre-half Sam Bone saw the hosts fall behind on 20 minutes.
The collective gasp from the packed main stand as Bone attempted to pass the ball across to John Mountney on the right suggested that the defender was one of the few in the ground that failed to recognise the danger.
Lurking between Bone and Mountney was Pat’s wing-back Anto Breslin, who easily intercepted, cut inside and slipped the ball to Chris Forrester.
The Saints talisman took one touch and then drilled the ball high into the top left-hand corner from 20 yards.
As the ball hit the net, Bone held his head in his hands, but there was little sympathy for the Dundalk man from the Lilywhites faithful.
It wasn’t long before they were roaring their side on again in search of a goal and when a corner dropped to Greg Sloggett at the back post, he almost turned it home.
He did seem surprised when the ball dropped to his left foot, however, and didn’t connect with any great conviction.
It was his final act in the match, as moments later he went down clutching his hamstring.
Sloggett went off last week with the same injury, so a longer lay-off is likely this time around.
Meanwhile, Pat’s goalscorer Forrester spotted Dundalk keeper Nathan Shepperd off his line and went for glory from inside his own half, but didn’t get the distance on his effort to beat the Welshman.
Some more pace on his lob and he might have been celebrating a goal of the season contender.
He could have done with some tips from the fastest man in Casey’s Field last night - and the fastest Irishman in history - who was watching from the main stand.
Local hero Israel Olatunde was there to cheer on the Lilywhites and he was one of two VIPs in attendance.
Northern Ireland legend Pat Jennings made the short trip across the border - presumably to cheer on his son’s employers.
Pat junior is goalkeeping coach at St Pat’s, where former Aberdeen, Kilmarnock and Oldham netminder Danny Rogers is now between the sticks.
Rogers is still finding his feet at the Richmond Park club following his August move to the League of Ireland, if Dundalk’s equaliser is anything to go by.
Not to take anything away from O’Kane’s precision strike from 25 yards, moments before the half-time break.
But Rogers, who has been called into the senior Ireland squad in the past, seemed slow in reacting to the drive, which ended up in his bottom left-hand corner.
Pat’s winner was a classic counter-attacking move, involving Curtis, Barry Cotter and Tunde Owolabe, who played it to the overlapping Ben McCormack.
His low cross was finished neatly by O’Reilly from six yards - a goal that could yet be worth hundreds of thousands to Euro-chasing St Pat’s.
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