Byrne fires Bohemians to victory

Bohemians 3 Finn Harps 0:JASON BYRNE announced his return to the domestic game when capping a man-of-the-match display with his first goal for Bohemians to help move them up to third place in the table.

It appeared destined not to be Finn Harps' night from early on as little went right for Paul Hegarty and his side.

Missing their captain Tony Shields for personal reasons and with four changes from last week, Harps survived an early scare when Stuart Malcolm made a telling tackle on Mark Rossiter inside the first minute to prevent the inrushing midfielder getting in a shot.

But it all began to unravel for the Donegalmen midway through the half when they had Kevin Ramsay sent off and Hegarty was dismissed from the dugout before they fell a goal behind.

Booked after just six minutes fort a late challenge on John Paul Kelly, Ramsay repeated the dose on Rossiter 15 minutes later and was shown a second yellow by referee Alan Kelly.

Hegarty was unhappy the decision and was sent to the stand for his vehement protest.

Disrupted, Harps almost conceded from the resultant free-kick, with James Gallagher having to produce a superb reaction save from Crowe's flicked header from Byrne's delivery.

But Bohemians did breach Gallagher's goal on 21 minutes with what has to go down as a soft goal; no one picked up home captain Owen Heary on the edge of the box as he collected Byrne's pass to shoot to the net off a post.

The lively Byrne came within inches of opening his Bohemians account six minutes before the break. Crowe flicked the ball down with his head and Byrne flashed a right-foot volley just over the top.

Byrne then gave Kelly a withering look minutes later when the winger chose to shoot and put the ball wide from Conor Powell's lay-off with his striker better positioned.

Kelly did oblige minutes into the second half, threading the ball through and Byrne's left-foot flick clipped the crossbar.

Byrne drove a shot wide minutes later before finally getting his reward with a powerfully struck penalty on 62 minutes after he'd been pulled down by Malcolm following Chris Turner's through ball. Crowe sealed the win on 71 minutes when stabbing home at the back post from Harpal Singh's low cross from the left.

BOHEMIANS: Murphy; Heary, Oman, Burns, Powell; Kelly, Rossiter, Turner (Turner, 63), O'Donnell; Byrne (Mansaram, 79), Crowe (McGinlay, 87).

FINN HARPS: Gallagher; Labonte, Mukendi, Malcolm, Minnock; Gill (Breen, 72), McGowan, Williams (Brolly, 76), Holmes (Funston, 76); Gethins, Ramsay.

Referee: Alan Kelly (Cork).