After a poor opening 20 minutes, the home side injected a bit of tempo into their play. It led to Ger Barron being called into action twice in successive minutes, first to push away a Kearns drive and then to deny Jason Byrne who had looked favourite to score after initially skipping around the goalkeeper.

Mark Quigley then sent a header over the bar in the 39^th minute but Dundalk were in front three minutes later. Kearns fed Gaynor on the left and with everybody, including Barron, expecting a cross, the Ardee man caught the UCD 'keeper out by firing past him at his near post.

UCD were given a mountain to climb when Dundalk made it 2-0 on the stroke of half-time. Kearns' free-kick was too hot for Barron to handle, leading to Byrne hitting the post. UCD failed to get the ball out of the danger zone and after some wonderful feet by Quigley to make room for a cut back, Kearns was on hand to bundle the ball home through a crowd of bodies.

The Students, who had only scored once in their previous four league games, pulled one back when Paul Corry beat Peter Cherrie with a wonderful free-kick in the 69^th minute but the result was put beyond doubt two minutes later when Jason Byrne tucked the ball home after being set up by Simon Madden.

DUNDALK: Cherrie; Madden, Hawkins, Guthrie, N Murphy; Kearns, Ward, McDonnell, Gaynor; Quigley (Griffin 80), Byrne (Breen 78).