Bray Wanderers 2 Waterford United 1: Eamon Zayed was the catalyst for this win for the home side, involved in Ciarán Ryan's equaliser before scoring a terrific second, which proved the winner, after Pat Purcell had given Waterford the lead.
Unlike their faulty lighting, Bray started brightly and wasted two gilt-edged chances inside the opening three minutes. Both fell to Zayed, the first almost virtually from the kick-off when he waltzed through only to be thwarted by a good stop by Waterford goalkeeper Packie Holden.
Two minutes later Zayed was in on goal again, this time from Stephen Fox's pass. The former Irish under-21 international rounded Holden, but his shot from an acute angle was cleared off the line by the retreating Purcell.
That was good defending by Purcell and he showed his ability in the other box to give Waterford the lead on 18 minutes, once they had survived and settled down from Bray's early onslaught.
The alarm bells had rung in the Bray defence from Waterford's first corner a minute earlier when goalkeeper Chris O'Connor flapped at Kevin Waters's delivery and was relieved to see Willie Doyle direct the loose ball wide.
But there was no such reprieve from Steve Yelverton's excellent corner as Purcell, unchallenged, powered a header to the net.
Bray hit back thanks to a defensive blunder by Waters on 41 minutes.
The Waterford left back, in for his injured captain, John Frost, was all too easily dispossessed by Fox. His shot was blocked away to Zayed, who crashed his effort off the bar.
The danger remained, though, and Ryan followed up to drive to the net.
Rattled, Waterford fell behind in first-half stoppage time.
Played through by his captain Jody Lynch, Zayed showed pace and strength to hold off the challenges of three defenders before toe-poking past Holden for a terrific goal.
Waterford worked hard to get back into the match after the break without seriously threatening O'Connor's goal and Bray should have added to their winning margin.
Holden saved well with his feet from Colm Tresson before the industrious Fox shot wide.
Niall Andrews then made a tremendous block to deprive Tresson what looked a certain goal late on.
A good game was marred three minutes from time when Bray's Lynch was shown a straight red card for clashing with the Blues' Kevin Doherty.
BRAY WANDERERS: O'Connor; O'Reilly, Lynch, Charles, Keogh; Dunne (Kelch, 39 mins), Long (Gifford, 52), Tresson, Ryan; Fox, Zayed.
WATERFORD UNITED: Holden; Andrews, Doherty, Purcell, Waters (Bruton, 71 mins); Yelverton, Reynolds, Mulcahy, Heffernan; Doyle, Murphy.
Referee: E Barr (Dublin).
