Leaders fail to break down gritty Drogheda

It was, as Dermot Keely pointed out afterwards, all set up for a shock. The Drogheda players had something to prove to their new manager and who better to prove it against than Shelbourne whom they had already beaten this season in the early stages of the League Cup.

The Dublin outfit, meanwhile, have been making an art form out of playing well enough to get a result against any team while sometimes looking to be well short of championship quality (something that surely can't last forever).

If the early exchanges were anything to go by, however, it was going to be Shelbourne at a stroll, for right from the off they looked set to take the game by the scruff of the neck and dish out a bit of a Christmas stuffing.

By the end it was a very different story with Drogheda, having been reduced to 10 men early on, comfortably deserving the point they earned thanks to a gutsy defensive performance.

Afterwards manager Eddie May praised his players while also taking just enough of the credit to reassure Drogheda's directors that their actions over the past two weeks will be made to look prudent rather than ruthless with the passing of time.

Nobody would want to get carried away quite yet but at the very least the tactical options taken by May and his assistant Harry McCue appeared to pay off for the hosts yesterday while the character shown by his players suggests that the new man has inherited much that is positive from his predecessor at the club.

On the face of it Darren O'Keeffe's sending-off, for a poor challenge on James Keddy after half an hour of what had already settled into being a fairly one-sided contest should have effectively decided the matter.

It looked to have as well, for having been under pressure from the start, United found themselves with just one man, Mark Revins, up front from then until half-time. The result was unpromising to say the least for the locals as Shelbourne repeatedly gathered possession in the middle of the pitch and then proceeded to poke and prod a very heavily manned United defence.

At the break, said May, he made his first real management decision at the club, throwing on both Fergal Coleman and Colm Murphy while encouraging John Butler to return to his original more advanced role in attack. The effect, while scarcely earth-shattering, was to at least remind the visitors that goals can be scored at either end, something they might have been forgiven for forgetting after Paul Doolin had cleared off the line from O'Keeffe back in the ninth minute.

Indeed for all the possession that the league leaders continued to enjoy they failed to draw even one decent save from Gareth Byrne in the United goal. At the other end Steve Williams was called into action twice, the Welshman first producing a stunning reaction stop to prevent Pat Scully's back pass slipping past him at the near post, and then closing down Butler quickly enough to smother the local striker's disappointing shot from inside the area.

All of which gave the lie to Keely's assertion afterwards that his reluctance to change things late on had been based solely on the fact that his side were "totally running the show". As it happened Drogheda appeared to develop enough self-belief during the closing five or 10 minutes to edge forward a little in search of a winner.

The suspicion was that they would leave themselves open to being caught at the back for their most popular method of defence was to fling bodies at the ball and then clear the danger up-field. The approach threw up a string of heroes, most memorably Damian Maher and Greg O'Dowd, and it prompted Keely to concede that his side had never really looked a threat through the centre "something that never happens when (the suspended) Stephen Geoghegan is in there".

In his absence Dessie Baker and Garry Haylock once again managed a poor return on the amount of ball they received from wide positions with the result that Shelbourne once again failed to come across like a team capable of going more than half a season unbeaten or, for that matter, opening up an eight-point gap at the top of the table.

As of last night, though, they'd done both and as long as they continue to lift their game for the crunch fixtures against their closest rivals there are unlikely to be too many complaints when they fail to break down the strugglers. So far, at least, it appears to be serving them rather well.

Drogheda United: G Byrne; Impey, McDonald, Maher; A Murphy, O'Keeffe, O'Dowd, M Byrne, Boyle; Revins, Butler. Subs: C Murphy and Coleman for Revins and M Byrne (half-time).

Shelbourne: Williams; Heary, Scully, McCarthy, D Geoghegan; R Baker, Doolin, Fenlon, Kedddy; Haylock, D Baker. Sub: Kelly for Haylock (79 mins).

Referee: J Stacey (Athlone).