Dundalk continued their climb out of the danger zone with an important win over Sligo Rovers at Oriel Park last night. Another plus for the home club was injury-plagued Brian Byrne netting his first goal of the season.

All the goals in this high-scoring game came in the first half. Dundalk dominated the second period but just could not manage to find the Sligo net again.

With the game evenly balanced, Dundalk were a little lucky to take the lead after 18 minutes when a speculative shot from Colm Fortune, on loan from Athlone, deceived the Sligo goalkeeper Nicky Broujos.

Broujos could do nothing however about the second goal for Dundalk when local boy David Ward did well to finish on a pass from Fortune.

At this stage it looked like an easy win for the home side, but Sligo gave warning when Donagh Oates hit the base of a post and then scored in the 35th minute with an excellent shot from the edge of the area.

Dundalk got their third shortly afterwards with Brian Byrne running on to a good pass from Ward to tip the Sligo goalkeeper from close in. But Sligo were not out of it and three minutes before the interval Aled Rowland shot to the net from about 10 yards after a good break down the wing by defender, Ian Lynch.

In the second half Broujos did well to tip over a fierce shot from David Crawley and Ward missed the chance to put the game out of the visitors' reach midway through the period when he was a little slow getting on the end of a defence-splitting pass by Byrne.

In the closing minutes, Broujos made another good save from Ward and Byrne was just narrowly wide to round off a good performance by Dundalk.

Dundalk: Williams, Reddish, Crawley, Gollogly, Brady, McNulty, Campbell, Fortune, Ward, Dunne, Byrne.

Sligo Rovers: Broujos, McGlynn, Hutchinson, Reid, Charles, Sheridan, Rowland, Ogden, Oates, Hoecks, Lynch. Subs: Shannon for Hoecks (60 mins); Flannery for Oates (81 mins).

Referee: J McDermott (Dublin).