Bohemians 2 Galway Utd 0:SEÁN CONNOR'S knack for upsetting his former employers at Dalymount Park abandoned him last night. His increasingly threadbare looking side were well beaten by the Dubliners who, though they have had much better nights than this, didn't play nearly as poorly as they would have had to in order to avoid winning.
United arrived looking to end a 15-match losing streak in the league and Connor must have been anxious to remind his players that this was the last place they had won. But that was way back in March and as the off field problems have mounted since then so the odds against them springing surprises have lengthened.
This time around Connor couldn’t even half fill his bench and while he still has a few experienced players like Alan Murphy and Bobby Ryan in midfield to call upon, the team inevitably has a decidedly makeshift look about it these days.
In the circumstances Bohemians’ own accelerated youth development policy looked positively low key but Pat Fenlon continues to rebuild his squad from within. Mark O’Leary performing solidly at right back and Aidan Downes coming on to win the penalty from which the home side finally copper-fastened their grip on the game in the 75th minute.
They had actually led it from around the 75th second with Christy Fagan popping up at the right hand post to fire home his fifth goal in four games after United had failed to properly defend a throw in.
It was far from the last thing they failed to defend properly. Conor Winn made a couple of decent saves while his defenders somehow survived a succession of goalmouth scrambles, many prompted by a mixture of terrible initial errors on their parts, that increasingly seemed to have a hint of comedy about them.
Bohemians were comfortably on top and never seriously looked likely to lose their lead. But when Fagan hit the woodwork three times in five second-half minutes it did start to seem as if they were going to have to settle for the slender margin of victory.
Finally, though, Paul Sinnott hauled Downes down inside the area, and Killian Brennan improved considerably on most of the home side’s previous attempts to finish by powering the ball into the top left corner from the spot.
Poor results against United last season effectively cost his side the title and this win made it four in a row, a feat not achieved over the entire course of that campaign.
Remarkably, given the scale of the changes prompted by the club’s own financial problems, it also keeps the Dubliners in touch with the main contenders in the current title race.
Finishing first, of course, continues to look a long shot. Galway’s place at the other extreme of the table, on the other hand, looks completely inevitable.
BOHEMIANS: Murphy; O’Reilly (Feely, 90 mins), Burns, Price, Cahill; Buckley, O’Brien, Traynor (Forrester, 66 mins), Brennan; Flood, Fagan (Downes, 66 mins).
GALWAY UNITED: Winn; Kelly, Sinnott, Browne, Walsh (Gartlan, 90+2 mins); Dusi, Murphy, Kelly, Ryan; Gilmore (Cheevers, 85 mins), Caldwell.
Referee: A Buttimer (Dublin).
