Hesitant Shelbourne shattered

Another final day of the championship drama at Oriel Park, another team of sure things left, traumatised, to make the journey back to Dublin empty handed. Shelbourne had gone to Dundalk with the odds stacked heavily in their favour but they were hesitant throughout a tightly contested game anyway and ended up on the wrong end of a 2-1 beating by a side that hadn't managed to score once again them in six previous league and cup meetings this season.

On the night, Shelbourne simply weren't good enough. The suspended Pat Fenlon was sorely missed in the centre while the absence of Dessie Baker on the right, also due to a ban, and a disappointing display by Mark Rutherford on the left, robbed the Dubliners of what is usually their most productive route forward, the wings.

Raymond Campbell, on the other hand, did well for the locals out wide on the right while Ronnie McQuilter disrupted Shelbourne's attempts to move the ball through the centre where Paul Carlyle steadily emerged as the dominant force.

After David Ward's opener, it was Carlyle's perfectly timed through ball that set up Brian Byrne for the second goal of the night. Dundalk's top scorer finished it wonderfully, stealing a yard on his markers and chipping the goalkeeper as he rushed to intercept, then pass just inside the area.

That, it seemed, meant that the Dublin club's title ambitions lay firmly in the hands of Kilkenny City and although Stephen Geoghegan grabbed one back from a narrow angle three minutes from time when Steve Williams parried Pat Scully's original header, St Patrick's had gotten the upper hand at Buckley Park, on the night and, as it was to turn out, in the title race.

Shelbourne had made a nervous start to the game, looking shaky in defence more than once as Ward, a leaving certificate student from the town, repeatedly combined well with Brian Byrne to threaten Alan Gough's goal.

The Shelbourne goalkeeper was scarcely troubled but he could have done no more than fetch the ball out of the back of the net had the youngster connected properly with Byrne's low ball from the left midway through the first period.

It was the best of the home side's chances by some way but while Liam Kelly might have done a lot better when put clean through early on, it was definitely the hosts who looked more likely to score with David Hoey, Raymond Campbell and Tom McNulty all looking keen to try their luck from a good bit further out.

As half-time approached, though, and the news from Buckley Park of Kilkenny's equaliser filtered around the ground, Shelbourne's nerves seemed to steady a little. Greg Costello, rated doubtful a day before the game with a groin strain, limped out of the game after 40 minutes but with Declan Geoghegan coming in on the left side of the defence and Dave Smith switching sides, the team continued to settle regardless and by the time the break had arrived they were, for the first time in the night, just about having the better of it.

When Tony Sheridan, Declan Fitzgerald and Liam Kelly were all involved in the best move of the match shortly after the restart, it seemed that Damien Richardson's side were going to take the game by the scruff of the neck. But the bubble began to burst eight minutes after the restart when Raymond Campbell knocked a corner from the right short for David Crawley and his cross was chested down brilliantly by the 18 year-old Ward inside a crowded six-yard box before he drove it fiercely off the underside of the crossbar and into the net.

"We never got going," remarked an emotional Richardson afterwards. "We had the title's destiny in our own hands and we blew it." The Shelbourne boss has sometimes been accused of overstatement but, sadly for him, this time he had hit the nail on the head.

Dundalk: Williams; Hoey, Doohan, Brady, Crawley; Campbell, McQuilter, Carlyle, Campbell; Ward, Byrne.

Shelbourne: Gough; Costello, McCarthy, Scully, Smith; Sheridan, Fitzgerald, Neville, Rutherford; Kelly, S Geoghegan. Sub: D Geoghegan for Costello (41 mins).

Referee: H Byrne (Dublin).