Derry City rescued a point away to St Patrick's Athletic in the LOI Premier Division, with a 73rd-minute equaliser from James Clarke salvaging a big point for the visitors. The game was a closely contested affair, with St Pat's enjoying much of the ball but failing to build on Aidan Keena's first-half penalty. Brian Maher made several big saves as Derry rallied late on to score the equaliser. The result means St Pat's once again failed to make up significant ground on leaders Shamrock Rovers, who remain seven points ahead of them. With just six wins from 26 games now, pre-season title pretenders Derry remain sixth and well off the European qualification places. Following his social media comments after Thursday's exit from Europe to Croatian side Rijeka, veteran winger James McClean was left out of the Derry squad and didn't travel to Dublin. Asked to comment on the situation after the game, Derry head coach Tiernan Lynch was non-committal. 'My job is to concentrate on what's going on on the field,' said Lynch. Pressed on whether he felt undermined by the comments, Lynch refused to say whether McClean had a future at the club or whether he would be disciplined. 'See this group of players, they're a fantastic group of players in that dressing room and that's my concentration, that's my commitment and that's what I'm here to talk about. 'I am going to talk about the group that's in there. Anybody who wants to talk about anything other than today's game, I've not any interest in it.'