Clohessy keeps a below par Shelbourne out

With a league title beckoning perhaps it would be wrong to be overly critical of Shelbourne for not beating Bluebell United at Tolka Park on Saturday night.

The Leinster League side were, after all, a far better side than the St Mochta's outfit who had proven so difficult to finish off at Dalymount the previous evening and Dermot Keely's side have probably produced some of their best of the campaign over the past couple of months. So what harm a bit off a night off?

Well, on the face of it, there's an unwanted replay (at the same venue tomorrow night) for a start although Keely, typically, was blase about the prospect remarking that having a game "is better than training and we would have been doing that on a Tuesday night anyway".

With Cork City due to visit on Friday, though, the manager putting his players through their paces might have made for a more productive session than the possibility of having them put through the hoops once again.

As a rule, of course, non-league teams that manage this sort of result against better opponents tend to roll over and die second time around but even a trip into extra-time would surely be a most unwelcome burden on the Premier Division leaders who must, at this stage, really blow things if anybody is to steal the title from under their noses.

As it happens, drawing matches they should have won was their biggest problem over the first half of the league campaign but there can have been few in which they created as many chances as they did on Saturday. And when Bluebell goalkeeper Mark Clohessy mishit an attempted clearance of a backpass with virtually his first touch of the ball it appeared that creating the chances would be the hard part, after that they could almost be relied upon to find their own way into the net.

Clohessy, however, turned out to be a more unpredictable package than that. There were certainly occasions over the 90 minutes when his uncertainty, sometimes under very straightforward looking balls, must have caused some palpitations in his team-mates but then there was little doubt either that by the end the 23-year-old plumber had done more than anyone to force a replay.

Two second half saves in particular - the first from a glancing Stephen Geoghegan header, the second from a finely struck Carel Van Der Velden free kick - were superb and few were surprised afterwards when, despite the odd fumble, he was got the man of the match award.

For Shelbourne Pat Fenlon was probably as close as there was to a contender, the bubbling midfielder having given the Bluebell defence a fairly wretched time of it for the first hour or so with his fine through balls and taste for a crack at the target. As it has been before, though, Shelbourne's finishing was generally a problem.

With 20 minutes remaining it would have been very difficult for any but the hardest of hearts to begrudge Bluebell their draw for they had battled hard and shown flashes of defensive inspiration when it mattered most. Still, they were probably fortunate that after the sending off of Liam Reilly and Garry Haylock in the 77th minute that Keely appeared content to settle for the replay.

Neither manager saw the off-the-ball incident which prompted Gerry Perry to brandish the cards although the fact that he gave a free to Shelbourne suggested that he felt the striker had retaliated after being fouled. For a man whose arrival into the game for Geoghegan four minutes previously gave him an important opportunity to provide a return on the £1,000 a week he is reputed to be earning at the club grinning and bearing would surely have been a better policy.

Instead his loss and that of Mark Hutchison through injury forced Keely to shift Owen Heary to the left side of his defence, drop Richie Baker back to right full and, more disappointingly, replace him on the right wing with his brother Dessie. That left John Powell up front by himself and gave Bluebell the breathing space they required to get through a spell when the team with half a dozen full time professionals might otherwise have been expected to make their superior fitness tell.

Bluebell United: Clohessy; Swift, O'Brien, Reilly, Curran; Fitzpatrick, Nolan, Duffy, Wynne; Dunning, McGovern. Subs: Gill for Fitzpatrick (33 mins); Geoghegan for Nolan (halftime); Behan for Swift (57 mins).

Shelbourne: Williams; Heary, Scully, McCarthy, Hutchison; R Baker, Fenlon, Doolin, Keddy; D Baker, S Geoghegan. Subs: Van Der Velden for Doolin (67 mins); Haylock for Geoghegan (73 mins); Powell for Hutchison (81 mins). Referee: G Perry (Dublin).

A last-minute winner from substitute Anthony Reilly utterly changed Dundalk's night as they went top of the First Division table with a 2-1 defeat of bottom club Limerick at Oriel Park on Saturday. Leading from a 33rd minute David Crawley penalty which followed the sending off of Limerick's Barry Ryan, Dundalk struggled to put their 10-man visitors away.

It then appeared not to be their night when Derek McCarthy equalised with five minutes to go. But, thankfully for the Terry Eviston's promotion chasers, Reilly saved their blushes ahead of next week's top four meeting.

The division's leading scorer Robbie Farrell shot home his 15th strike of the season as Home Farm/Fingal recorded their biggest win in beating Monaghan United 3-0 at Whitehall.