Safety first as points are shared

St Patricks Ath - 0 Shelbourne - 0 On Monday it had taken penalties to separate St Patrick's Athletic and Cork City after 120 minutes of football had failed to do the trick, but it was easy to suspect after last night's tough but generally tedious Dublin derby at Richmond Park that even a prolonged bout of spot kicks wouldn't have produced a winner from two teams primarily set, it seemed, on avoiding defeat.

Even the single point earned by the home side was enough to elevate them to joint second in the table alongside Cork, while Shelbourne, for a while at least, have extended their lead at the top of the table to seven points.

From the outset the game was fast and occasionally furious as both teams attempted to gain the upper hand in a fairly physical battle, but for long stretches it was disappointingly short on quality.

The opening half yielded just three or four chances of any consequence, with Shelbourne's Steve Williams producing the period's only save three minutes before the interval after Keith Fahy had picked up the ball from Karim El Kheybir and struck a decent shot that bounced awkwardly just as the goalkeeper got down to push it around the post.

Six minutes earlier Jason Byrne might have put the visitors in front when he got onto the end of a deflected free kick but blasted his shot well wide when he had time and space to do better.

The absence of goals, though, was a fair reflection of the game, with the league leaders occasionally making the pace of their wingers tell on the break and the home side's strikers causing a few problems for their markers around the box. But neither side could impose themselves on the contest.

Passing moves of any quality were few and far between, while a combination of poorly placed passes and some tough tackling meant that the game was punctuated by a remarkable number of stoppages of one kind or another.

Eamonn Collins' side made a brighter start to the second half and Fahy came close to putting the locals in front 11 minutes in when he headed Charles Mbabazi's well-placed cross from the left back past Williams but just beyond the far post.

Richie Baker, though, continued to pose a threat at the other end even if neither of the Shelbourne strikers could make much of an impact, and twice in the next 10 minutes the former under-21 international might have opened the scoring with the better of the chances, a long-range effort after 63 minutes, just skimming the top of the crossbar.

Pat Fenlon brought on Ger McCarthy, whose arrival was greeted with jeers from supporters of the club he played for until the close season. The 24 year-old then made himself even more unpopular by injuring Chris Adamson as the St Patrick's goalkeeper attempted to gather the ball at the striker's feet soon afterwards.

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Adamson (Gallagher, 81 mins); Prenderville, Foley, Maguire, El Kheybir; Fahy, Byrne (Murphy, 78 mins), Donnelly, Mbabazi; Bird, Freeman.

SHELBOURNE: Williams; Heary, Doherty, Rogers, Crawley; R Baker, Crawford, Morgan, Cahill; Byrne, Geoghegan (McCarthy, 75 mins).

Referee: J McDermott (Dublin).