Shamrock Rovers 1 Sligo R 0:AFTER LAST season's late charge and dramatic cup victory over their hosts here, great things were expected from Sligo Rovers in this year's title race.

Having been handicapped in recent years by injuries during the early part of campaigns, though, they appear to be set on making life difficult with a second straight defeat to the champions leaving them seven points off the pace being set by their rivals.

There’s a long way to go, of course, but along the way there will be two more games against Michael O’Neill’s side and unless they acquire a little more bite then Paul Cook’s side will have it all to do for the rest of the campaign.

Karl Sheppard’s first-half goal earned the Dubliners what was a well-earned victory and the similar tactical approach adopted by the managers did make things interesting from the start. It was the home side that derived the greater benefit from packing midfield, with two players sitting in front of their defence and three immediately behind a lone striker, Gary O’Neill, yielding a steady supply of scoring chances.

O’Neill worked hard to close defenders down, create space for himself to work in and bring those just behind him into attacks, but his efforts were fairly overshadowed during the first half by those of Sheppard who, operating from the right, posed the greater danger to Brendan Clarke even before he struck after 36 minutes for his fourth league game in a row.

The cup holders didn’t tend to do themselves any favours in midfield where possession was routinely given away cheaply and having initially smothered the locals’ attempts to work the ball forward from there, Sligo’s defence started to wing things a bit as the game wore on with Gary McCabe, against his old club, and Sheppard faring particularly well as they looked to work their way in from wide positions.

Alan Mannus, in contrast, was scarcely troubled prior to injury time at the end of the second half with Sligo proving incapable of providing any sort of real support to Matthew Blinkhorn who got little change out of Dan Murray and Ken Oman.

Raffaele Cretaro struggled to make any sort of impact, especially early on when playing on the left behind the striker while Joseph Ndo, in the centre, drifted in and out of things, occasionally helping his side to retain the ball for a short spell but never managing to drive them forward from halfway.

What chances did come their way then were very much against the run of play but the best of them, from a low angled corner by Richie Ryan a little over a quarter of the way into the game, might easily have produced a goal with Ndo stepping over the ball, but Cretaro couldn’t quite make the right connection from 10 yards out.

The offensive side of the Dubliners’ game was a good deal more dynamic and Clarke had to react sharply more than once to prevent low crosses arriving at the feet of McCabe or Ronan Finn, whose darting runs from the far post consistently threatened to yield a breakthrough.

Sure enough, that was more or less how the goal arrived although Clarke, in the end, was at least as culpable as any of his defenders. The goalkeeper first fluffed an attempt to clear a back pass, allowing Sheppard to block down his attempt to hoof the ball forward before getting lucky with the rebound which came off him again before he finally gathered it.

With his subsequent kick-out, though, he again played the ball straight to an opponent and this time he was less fortunate with Conor McCormack eventually getting around Alan Keane and crossing to the edge of the six-yard box where Sheppard, entirely unmarked, had an easy header to maintain his recent streak.

It took until after the break before Sligo started to show any great urgency but they only came close to scoring after Ken Oman had been dismissed seven minutes from time after picking up a second yellow.

However, the hosts continued to carve out most of the better chances with Ciarán Kilduff missing the pick of them when he rounded Clarke shortly after the sending off only to fire into the side-netting from a tight angle.

Blinkhorn had a great chance with 10 minutes remaining but fired his shot straight at Mannus.

SHAMROCK ROVERS: Mannus; Sullivan, Murray, Oman, Stevens; Rice, McCormack (Turner, 81 mins); Sheppard, Finn, McCabe (Dennehy, 63 mins); O’Neill (Kilduff, 73 mins).

SLIGO ROVERS: Clarke; Keane, McGuinness, Foran, Davoren; Ryan, Ventre (Russell, 79 mins); Doyle, Ndo (Kirby, 75 mins), Cretaro (Greene, 63 mins); Blinkhorn.

Referee: A Buttimer (Cork).