National League Premier Division: Shelbourne 1 Waterford Utd 1 His public line may be to shrug off the talk of the club's disciplinary problems of recent weeks, but Pat Fenlon must have wondered if Jason Byrne's presence in the Shelbourne team that took on Waterford United at Tolka Park last night might have proven as decisive as it had done two months ago when he got two and the Dubliners won 4-0 at the RSC.
Having beaten Jimmy McGeough's side so handsomely at their place then, the locals must, even without their leading scorer, have fancied their chances of comfortably extending their five-point lead at the top of the table.
Instead, they had to come from behind, with Ger McCarthy getting their second-half equaliser after they had found themselves behind from the sixth minute, when Alan Reilly headed on a long kick-out by Dan Connor and Gary O'Neill picked up the loose ball ahead of Kevin Doherty to scored from eight yards out.
It was the first of several defensive mishaps for Doherty, whose night was eventually ended just before half-time by a collision with team-mates Stephen Geoghegan and Connor that left him looking badly concussed as he was carried off before being brought away to hospital.
While he was still around he did produce one of the home side's few real attempts through the first half when he turned a Thomas Morgan corner from the left towards the bottom left-hand corner but without the power required to seriously threaten the United goalkeeper.
Shelbourne's best chance of the period fell to Geoghegan who looked set, just eight minutes after the goal, to find the net with a glancing touch to a well-judged Ollie Cahill cross. The striker missed the target badly, though, and the hosts didn't go as close again until McCarthy found the net shortly after the break.
By then they should have been trailing by another goal, for after Gary O'Neill had knocked the ball through for Wayne Fitzgerald it seemed clear to just about everybody bar the referee that the Waterford midfielder was taken down by Doherty.
There were other fleeting moments too when Fenlon must have wondered how his defenders were allowing the likes of O'Neill and Daryl Murphy to cause them such problems around the box, but for the most part what was most impressive about the visiting side was the composure they showed while under pressure at the other end.
And they had, in the likes of Wayne Fitzgerald, Alan Reilly and, later on, Mark Clifford sufficient attacking ability to cause the league leaders some problems on the break.
Their best chance of the second half came after just such a break when, following a decent build-up, Clifford's cross from the left somehow evaded three defenders, only for Daryl Murphy to miss from 12 yards or so.
In the end, though, Shelbourne were no more effective when it came to taking their chances.
SHELBOURNE: Williams; Heary, T McCarthy, Doherty (Gannon, 45 mins), Crawley; Hoolahan (R Baker, 70 mins), Crawford, Morgan, Cahill (S Byrne, 83 mins); McCarthy, Geoghegan.
WATERFORD UNITED: Connor; Mallon (Hughes, 75 mins), Breen, Byrne, Frost; O'Brien, Fitzgerald, O'Brien (Clifford, 60 mins), Reilly; Murphy, O'Neill.
Referee: I Stokes (Dublin).
