Bohemians fail to capitalise

Bohemians...1 St Patrick's Athletic...1When Bohemians drew at Tolka Park last week thanks to a late Tony Grant penalty Stephen Kenny bore the look of a man who just had his pockets picked.

Last night's Dublin derby may have produced the same result and the home side's manager must have felt just as aggrieved but this time there was nobody to blame but his own men after a game in which the league leaders dominated almost from beginning to end.

The game started in much the way you might have expected it to given that the visiting side had just one win in their last nine games while their hosts had yet to lose in 13 league outings.

Bohemians looked as eager as ever to get bodies forward and the ball to their front men but in the absence of the injured Paul Keegan they missed the ability of the former Bray striker to hold things up as support arrived from midfield.

Instead, Bobby Ryan played alongside Glen Crowe in attack while Fergal Harkin continued to occupy the slot out wide in midfield.

It meant a slight shift in emphasis for the home side as Ryan dropped back looking to pick up the ball and then run at defenders but the results seemed no less promising as only a couple of unlucky bounces prevented Stephen Kenny's men from severely testing Seamus Kelly.

As the half wore on, though, Bohemians continued to struggle to make anything tell for their dominance. Out wide Harkin and Mark Rutherford were both seeing plenty of the ball but their attempts to float the ball into the six-yard box were repeatedly cut out by Kelly who had little trouble dominating in the air.

The blustery conditions might not have been helping the home side's cause but then when Ryan was taken by down by the St Patrick's goalkeeper and Aidan O'Regan gave the penalty, but only a yellow card, they were hardly bad enough to excuse Crowe's second successive miss from the spot.

The league's leading scorer hammered the ball high and towards Phibsborough shopping centre as the large home support readied themselves to celebrate the goal.

Their disappointment was compounded nine minutes later at the other end when Simon Webb's failure to clear a Martin Russell cross allowed Tony Bird to turn the ballback across the goal for Ger McCarthy to knock home.

Bohemians swiftly set about cancelling out the blunder but it wasn't until the opening seconds of the second half that they managed it with Ryan feeding Harkin and the Donegalman controlling wonderfully before driving fiercely past Kelly and into the top right corner.

Within a few minutes the move was almost repeated but this time Harkin pulled the ball inside before shooting and a defender's outstretched leg deflected the ball wide of the target.

By this point Pat Dolan's side were struggling to maintain any sort of offensive threat and on more than one occasion all 11 players were packed into Kelly's box as their opponents tried desperately to figure out a way to break them down.

They had no shortage of chances to grab the winner they were chasing with Colin Hawkins, Kevin Hunt and Harkin again amongst the players to go close as Ryan, for the most part, played havoc with the visiting defence.

The goal just wouldn't come, though, and Kenny will not have been consoled much afterwards by the fact that his team retains a nine- point advantage at the top of the table after having now gone more than half the season without losing a game.

BOHEMIANS: Bayes; Lynch, Hawkins, McNally, Webb; Harkin, Hunt, Caffrey, Rutherford; Ryan, Crowe (O'Neill, 93 mins).

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Kelly; Marney, Foley, Harris, Burke; Russell (Griffin, 86 mins), Donnelly, Osam; Mbabazi (Kelly, 78 mins), Bird (McGuinness, 86 mins), McCarthy.

Referee: A O'Regan (Cork).