St Patrick's Ath 1 Shamrock Rovers 3:AS THEIR old rivals arrived in Inchicore last night for these two clubs' final meeting of the season, the home side's title hopes were already hanging by a thread.
After what proved to be a thrilling encounter, though, they are all but dead with St Patrick’s Athletic now needing something approaching a miracle if they are to overhaul Michael O’Neill’s Shamrock Rovers side, with even Bohemians left to chase what would be a quite remarkable turnaround.
Briefly, the locals did threaten to breathe life back into the campaign by ending Rovers’ long unbeaten run and narrowing the gap at the top to just four points.
The Rovers boss looked a little agitated for a while as, with his team trailing to an early Ryan Guy header, he paced up and down the length of the dugout like an anxious relative outside an operating theatre.
Ultimately, though, Rovers ran away worthy winners thanks to goals from Gary Twigg, Thomas Stewart and Billy Dennehy and if this had been a little more like one of those television medical dramas, somebody would have left the pitch after the third goal to tell O’Neill’s opposite number, Pete Mahon, that having tried everything in their powers, his players had simply been unable to save the patient.
As it was, the mood around Richmond Park at the final whistle could scarcely have been much more sombre.
With so much at stake, the hosts could always have been expected to try to seize the early initiative and there was a lot to admire about the way they set about their task from the kick-off.
Still, it came as a surprise when they grabbed the lead from a corner after less than two minutes and more of a shock really that that nobody wearing a hooped shirt saw fit even to make life difficult for Guy as he rose surprisingly from six yards out to power the ball home.
Having not so much as trailed another team for some 500 minutes of league football, Rovers looked predictably taken aback by the early setback but they quickly set about making up the lost ground.
The ensuing contest was fast, bordering on frantic, and if there was anybody in the stands who hadn’t been au fait with the state of the title race before taking their seats, they can’t have taken long to figure out their was a fair bit at stake.
The visitors just about edged much of the contest that followed but they were given quite a game by a St Patrick’s side absolutely desperate to secure all three points.
A couple of the home side’s back four had to produce some heroics at times but there was the odd time too when the locals were simply lucky to get away with it, not least when Dave Mulcahy managed to head on an Aidan Price throw-in almost to the feet of Twigg at the far post where, under a fair bit of pressure, the striker somehow managed to push the ball just the wrong side of the post.
He did rather better with half-time looming as Craig Sives headed James Chambers’ free against the foot of the post and the Scot stepped up to bury the rebound from 10 yards out for his 15th league goal of the season.
From there, Rovers pushed on well and after an out-and-out howler from Mulcahy had allowed Stewart in for his fifth goal of the campaign against last night’s opponent, Dennehy, after good work by Twigg who won the ball, wrapped things up for the visitors in some style from the edge of the area with 26 minutes still remaining.
“It was a tough, tough game, we knew it was going to be,” said O’Neill afterwards.
“We gave ourselves a bit of a struggle by conceding the early goal too but once we got ourselves into it, I think we were the better side and deservedly won the match so, overall, I’m delighted.”
ST PATRICK’S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Pender, Guthrie, Kenna, Bermningham; Guy (North, 66 mins), Mulcahy (O’Brien, 73 mins), S Byrne, Cash (Stewart, 81 mins); McAllister; Faherty.
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Mannus; Murphy, Sives, Price, Stevens; Dennehy (Kavanagh, 85 mins), Rice, Bradley, Chambers (O’Connor 73 mins), Stewart; Twigg (Turner, 81 mins).
Referee: D McKeon (Dublin).
