BOHEMIANS are entitled to feel that their challenge for a first championship success in 18 years is right on schedule after this convincing defeat of the holders at Oriel Park.

Victories at this venue are rare enough to persuade visiting managers to occasional excesses of optimism, but Turlough O'Connor was scarcely over-stating things when he said: "If we continue to play as well as we did in the first half today, I don't think we need fear too much in the closing stages of the championship.

"Unfortunately, we lost it a bit in the second half when allowing Dundalk back into a gamer which, from their point of view, appeared to be over at the interval.

"To the credit of my players, however, they had enough character to get their game, together again when danger threatened and overall I don't think we were flattered by a two-goal margin."

It was a curious afternoon at a ground where the experiment of reverting to Sunday afternoon football appears to have done little to win back the patronage of the missing fans.

The crowd was measured in hundreds rather than thousands and that was sad, given the fact that Dundalk are currently embarked on the defence of a title which brought no little credit to the town last May.

The pitch, like some of the players, has seen better days. But it failed to prevent Bohemians embarking on a positive goal rush which effectively decided the game before half-time.

O'Connor who had just been given a two-year extension of his contract at Dalymount Park, had obviously instructed his players to go out hard and exploit the problems of self-belief which have surfaced in Dundalk's team in recent weeks.

The game had only been in progress some 13 minutes when Padraig Dully struck for the allimportant opening goal. In a familiar ploy of using Maurice O'Driscoll as the near post target in corner kick situations, the visitors broke the cover when O'Driscoll's header came back off the under side of the crossbar and Dully was ideally placed to put the rebound in the net.

It was the perfect debut for the much travelled Dully, but regrettably, the day held less reward for the other newcomer on view, Dundalk's goalkeeper, John Connolly. Connolly, who once won an FAI Cup medal with Bohemians, earned the admiration of Dundalk supporters with a fine save to deny Derek Swan in the 11th minute.

Sadly, however, all that was forgotten when an elementary error by the goalkeeper saw Donal Broughan score a rare goal for Bohemians and with it came a decisive psychological advantage.

The right back was almost certainly looking for the tall figure of Dully when he hoisted a long cross into the Dundalk penalty area. Fortunately for him, however, the ball carried on the wind and while Connolly succeeded in keeping it out at the second attempt, the referee, Pat Kelly, acting on the advice of his linesman, Eddie Foley, adjudged that the ball was over the line before the goalkeeper touched it.

"The linesman had no doubt about the validity of the score and I agreed with him 100 per cent," said the referee.

That was in the 28th minute and within another 10 minutes Bohemians had gone three in" front. The timing of Brian Mooney's pass to Tony O'Connor was precise enough to wreck the home team's cover and while Connolly parried the first shot, Mooney was in quickly toe score from the rebound.

At that point, Bohemians looked a team of some talent with O'Driscoll and O'Connor In full control in midfield and the veteran Swan reaching back into the past for the verve to complement Dully in attack.

Curiously, they played Mooney on the left flank with Peter Hanrahan raiding down the opposite wing, but the overall effect was good enough to suggest that they would go on to win the game pretty much as they liked in the second half.

Surprisingly, then, it was Dundalk who made most of the running after the interval after introducing Tom McNulty and Joe Gallen in a double substitution for Keith Long and the disappointing Matt Britton.

Gallen, in the mood, represents a useful scoring asset and he made the point well when forcing the ball home in the 55th minute after a sustained attack involving Brian Byrne and Stephen Kelly.

The effect of that score was to convince players of the quality of Joe Hanrahan, Peter Withnell and not least Byrne to even more persisted efforts and incredibly the team which had contrived no more than one half chance in the opening 45 minutes, got to within a goal of the opposition at one point.

There were only 90 seconds left when Byrne, whose creative skills continued to provide manager Dermot Keely with some reassurance, projected the through pass for Withnell. The former Down Gaelic footballer still had some work to do at that point, but in moments of rich skill he took the ball under control before beating David Henderson with a firm shot from just inside the penalty area.

Turlough O'Connor may well have felt exasperated at that point, but within another 60 seconds he could permit himself a smile.

Swan, on the halfway line, fed the ball directly into O'Connor's path and the midfielder, doing everything right, ran deep inside the penalty area before sliding the shot between Connolly and his right hand post.