Bohs snatch a late victory

Shelbourne 1 Bohemians 2:AN INJURY-TIME winner from Ryan McEvoy saw Bohemians come from behind to beat 10-man Shelbourne at Tolka Park.

Trailing to Glenn Cronin’s first-half penalty, Bohemians levelled eight minutes into the second half through a bizarre goal.

Peter McMahon initially did well to control Derek Pender’s diagonal ball into the area. But even he couldn’t have imagined that his speculative flick over his shoulder would find the net. But that’s precisely where it ended up as the ball somehow came down, clipped the underside of the bar and went in.

Bohemians then won a fitful game in the final minute. Dave Scully whipped over a ball from the right and midfielder McEvoy crashed it to the net from close range to the delight of the Gypsies’ fans in the river-side stand.

Pre-match favourites Shelbourne, who’d won 2-0 at Dalymount in the first series, struggled to create much early on, though they did have the ball in the net from Philip Gorman’s header on 31 minutes when Bohemians failed to deal with Anto Murphy’s long throw. The defence was grateful to hear a whistle for offside.

It got no better for a disjointed Shelbourne two minutes later when midfielder John O’Sullivan was shown a straight red card by McKeon for diving in on McEvoy.

However, Shelbourne snatched the lead on 44 minutes. Bohemians captain Evan McMillan was caught tugging the shirt of Andy Boyle as Paddy Kavanagh floated over their third corner of the game. Skipper Cronin sent Craig Sexton the wrong way from the penalty to give the home side an unlikely half-time lead.

The second-half, however, would belong to Bohemians.

SHELBOURNE: Delaney; Mathews, Boyle, Shortall (Ryan, 48), Clancy; Murphy, Sullivan, Cronin, Kavanagh; Hughes (Dawson, 37), Gorman (P Byrne, 77).

BOHEMIANS: Sexton; Pender, McMillan, Feely, Lopes (Mulligan, 74); Buckley, Ward, Mulcahy, McMahon; McEvoy; O’Connor (Scully 55).

Referee: D McKeon (Dublin).