As the delighted locals streamed away from the Brandywell and the Shelbourne team bus sat waiting to take the beaten league leaders back home to Dublin, Derry City manager Stephen Kenny hailed his side's 2-0 win last night as "a great win and a great performance."
The three points gained mean that City are now sitting just three points off the pace at the top of the Premier Division table with a game in hand and Kenny said that he was "absolutely delighted," with the way his players had risen to what was perhaps their biggest challenge of the campaign so far.
"It's a big result for us and I thought we thoroughly deserved it," he said. "It was hugely important for us because if we'd lost it would have been fair to say we were out of it but we had it coming, we completely dominated the game down there that we lost 1-0 and then we were 2-0 up when we had our goalkeeper sent off in the second game at Tolka Park."
"A result like this can boost us but nobody's under any illusions, we're not patting ourselves on the backs too much, we know we have to keep it going, that we have it all to do again."
Pat Fenlon conceded that both the performance turned in by his side and the result were disappointments but there was clearly some irritation with the way in which the outcome had been greeted by the locals. "They obviously think it (the title race) is over, the way they celebrated at the end," he said. "All they were missing was the trophy. But there's a lot of games still to be played and if we win all of ours then we'll win the title, it's as simple as that."
Derry, indeed, would have to to overhaul their rivals' six goal better goal difference and win all of their games if the Dubliners were to take maximum points from their last four outings but Fenlon accepts that his side will have to do better than they did last night if they are to achieve anything like that sort of target.
"I'm disappointed because I know we didn't play tonight the way I know we can. We didn't pass the ball well enough, work hard enough, we basically weren't good enough in any area of the pitch and that's more disappointing than the result."
His side now have a 10-day rest before taking on Drogheda at Tolka Park but they will head into that game without their skipper Owen Heary, who missed this game due a hamstring problem and who now looks set to miss the remainder of the campaign.
"I don't think he'll play again this year," said Fenlon, "which is a blow but not as much of one as it would have been last year when we didn't have the likes of Greg O'Halloran or Sean Dillon to replace him. Obviously it's not good to lose your captain but there are plenty of lads in the team with experience and we've simply got to get on with it now."
