Rovers defence makes good on early returns

League of Ireland/Drogheda Utd 0 Shamrock Rovers 1AFTERWARDS, THE two mangers expressed satisfaction with the way their respective sides had played, Pat Scully seeing Rovers' performance as evidence of the quality added during the close season while Paul Doolin contended that the league champions had done enough to merit at least a point from Saturday evening's game.

The rest of us, though, had spent at least a moment or two during the second half marvelling at RTÉ's poor fortune for, having picked a truly miserable encounter between Bohemians and Drogheda to kick off their live coverage of the league 12 months ago, they fared little better here with their opener for the 2008 campaign.

Rovers, to their credit, successfully defended a lead taken in the third minute when it's hard to imagine that many would have backed them to pull it off during the celebrations. United, though, were terribly out of sorts. None of their usually solid back four managing to get through the 90 minutes without at least one serious error while in front of them the midfield misjudged one attempt after another to put their strikers through.

The highlights came early on with Alan Murphy's goal after three minutes a delight and Barry Murphy diving save at the other end from Shane Robinson eight minutes later equally impressive.

Just a little of the shine, though, was taken off the winner when Doolin suggested afterwards that perhaps the former Galway United and Derry City striker had mishit his shot.

It all seemed a little mischievous on the Dubliner's part until his words were put to the striker who broke, helplessly, into a grin and replied: "Well, it went in." Murphy, who managed just four goals in more than 30 appearances for Galway last season, clearly wasn't overly bothered about the sweetness of the strike, though. After a difficult second spell back at United, the 26-year-old is again playing the attacking role he relishes and with a club, he reckons, that is as big as any in the country.

"The goal today came out of something we'd worked on a bit in training, to be honest, Barry Ferguson knocking the ball down for me to have the shot, and it's always nice when something from the training ground comes off like that."

DROGHEDA UNITED:Vilmunen; Shelley, Tambouras, Gartland, Kendrick; Baker (Hughes, 78 mins), Robinson, Keegan (Byrne, 68 mins), Cahill; Bates (Iyane Thiam, 66 mins), Zayed.

SHAMROCK ROVERS: Murphy; O'Brien, Maguire, Ferguson, Flynn; S O'Connor, Rice, D O'Connor (Purcell, 75 mins), McGill; Baker (Martin, 78 mins), Murphy (Doyle, 68 mins).

Referee: D McKeon(Dublin).