Bray all at sea as Rovers maintain four-point lead

The surroundings may not exactly have been the new home that Rovers have been dreaming of these past few months but Damien Richardson's side seemed to settle in well enough last night at Richmond Park where they overran a desperately disappointing Bray side to win comfortably and maintain their four-point lead at the top of the premier division.

It looked fairly easy from very early and with less than 10 minutes played the league leaders were in front, Marc Kenny curling a free from just outside the box on the left past a three-man wall and into the path of Stephen Grant whose glancing header was enough to leave Eddie van Boxtel stranded.

As the quarter hour passed they made it 2-0, Derek Tracey this time forcing a good save from the former Dundalk goalkeeper who could do little about the fact that the loose ball then fell for Tony Cousins who finished well to grab a first goal of the season on what was his first start for the Dubliners since April.

Even then it was hard to see Wanderers, coming back for while the visitors were working hard to put some sort of pressure on Rovers, it was their defence that was being repeatedly opened up by much neater passing of their opponents.

With Paul Keegan apparently still struggling from the dead leg picked up last weekend, Pat Devlin's side lacked its usual mobility and ingenuity up front and even after Colm Tresson came on for the striker and Barry O'Connor pushed on into attack, the Rovers back four were rarely given much to worry about around their own box.

The hosts, on the other hand, grew in confidence as the half went on and while the closest they came to adding to their lead was when Kenny clipped the top of the crossbar from 25 yards, there were plenty of nervous moments for van Boxtel as his increasingly frazzled looking defence attempted to cope with what passes these days for the second string Rovers strikeforce.

Had Eddie Gormley's diving header succeeded in turning Keith Long's angled ball in rather than just wide of the left hand post in the 27th minute perhaps Wanderers might have steadied themselves and then mounted some sort of fightback but the chance was missed the only other chance of note around Tony O'Dowd's area involved a misplace defensive header that Terry Palmer had to hook off his line.

At the other end things continued to go downhill and Cousins should probably have had his second when Billy Woods capitalised on a mistake by Long to drill in a low ball that the striker just missed at the near post.

Still clearly believing that there was something in the game for his side, Wanderers manager Pat Devlin threw Mick Doohan into a three-man attack early in the second half but the switch never seriously looked like reversing the pattern of a game that was being almost entirely dominated by Richardson's men.

With just over an hour played Derek Tracey made sure of the points for his side when he met Kenny's free at the far post and headed home to make it 3-0. Wanderers then all but collapsed and Rovers could well have had another few on top of their fourth which came with 20 minutes remaining when Stephen Grant was sent clear on the Bray goalkeeper and calming slotted the ball home.

Darragh Kavanagh, in particular, will regret missing his chance shortly after Grant's second goal when his header was well stopped by van Boxtel. Bray, meanwhile, might have salvaged some pride in the dying minutes when Jason Byrne did well to set up Stephen Fox but with only O'Dowd to beat the midfielder's nerve seemed to desert him and his missed the target.

SHAMROCK ROVERS: O'Dowd; Deans, Scully, Palmer, Byrne; Kenny, Colwell (Kavanagh, 75 mins), Tracey, Woods; Cousins (Robinson, 69 mins), S Grant.

BRAY WANDERERS: Van Boxtel; Long (Britton, 53 mins), Doohan (Forsyth, 74 mins), Charles, Farrell; O'Connor, Morgan, Fox, Gormley; Keegan (Tresson, 37 mins), Byrne.

Referee: H Byrne (Dublin).