Rude awakening for champions

Strange days these for Bray Wanderers, another of the newly-promoted high-flyers who should be thinking merely in terms of survival but who, thanks to a couple of goals from Colm Tresson and one from Paul Keegan, last night comfortably beat champions Shelbourne and moved within three points of them at the top of the table.

Of course, the last time Bray paid the Premier Division a visit they started the season brightly too. Wins over just about all of the big Dublin outfits in quick succession left them sitting pretty early on. In the end, a dismal run-in made the drop pretty much unavoidable.

Things have changed, though, and it would be hard to see this Bray side losing their grip on things as dramatically after this well-deserved second win of the season against the league champions.

Two years ago Pat Devlin and his players never tired of telling us that they wouldn't be going back down. Last night, with close to half of the players involved for the home side having won league medals in recent years, they played as though the thought hadn't even crossed their minds.

Which isn't to say that they went out there and simply imposed themselves on this game because for long stretches of the first period it simply limped along in desperate need of somebody taking some sort of control.

Bray's movement was certainly better than that of their opponents but then the options for the visiting side's most natural passers were consistently limited by the fact that Dessie Baker was left with no support up front.

The idea, presumably, was that his brother, Richie, would get forward but with Colm Tresson playing wide on the left, the younger Baker had enough to be getting on with on the defensive front.

With nobody else managing to dominate out of a packed midfield, the closest the title holders came to threatening Eddie Van Boxtel's goal in the first half was a couple of fairly harmless corners and one weakly struck James Keddy shot which fooled the goalkeeper but hopped harmlessly wide.

Prior to the opening goal, Wanderers had a good deal more of the ball to play with but didn't manage to produce a threat. Midway through the half, however, Eddie Gormley popped up on the right side of the area and attempted to curl a cross towards the six-yard box. The ball struck the arm of Pat Scully who was so close that he scarcely had time to avoid the contact, but the penalty was given and Tresson put it away nicely.

Bray then lost Jason Byrne to injury and had to switch things around a little. Still they looked the better of the two sides and when Tresson doubled their lead five minutes into the second period with a wonderful finish to a brilliant long move, in which Barry O'Connor had also played a key part, it was impossible to see how Dermot Keely's side were going to get back.

The Shelbourne boss, forced to replace Richie Baker who had been injured while chasing Tresson back, tried to liven up his side's attacking game before the restart, throwing Richie Foran on, switching Davy Byrne up front and reverting to three at the back with Avery John moving from left back to sweeper.

The result, it quickly became apparent, was not much better with Paul Keegan suddenly finding acres of space.

After Keely moved to counter the threat Keegan managed to find the net. With O'Connor again helping to set up the chance with a cross from the right in the 88th minute, the former New England Revolution player headed in off the post from a few yards out.

That should have rounded off a miserable night for Shelbourne but it quickly got worse with a row developing out near the sideline over whether Keegan had been offside.

It ended with Pat Fenlon being sent off, and while Van Boxtel finally had to make a save a few moments later it's hard to believe that by then anybody on the visitors bench was even managing to watch.

Bray Wanderers: Van Boxtel; Britton, Doohan, Lynch, Keogh; O'Connor, Campbell, Gormley, Tresson; Keegan, Byrne (Long, 37).

Shelbourne: Williams; Heary, Scully, McCarthy, John (D Geoghegan, 79 mins); R Baker (Foran, 51 mins), Byrne, Crawford, Fenlon, Keddy (Hutchison, 54 mins), D Baker.

Referee: P Whelan (Dublin).