SOCCER/Dublin City - 1 Shamrock Rovers - 1 (Aggregate 3-2): Back in his Sligo Rovers days Willie McStay once observed that if Shamrock Rovers ever found themselves on the wrong end of a relegation fight then the rules would be changed to offer them a lifeline. More than a decade on, it's doubtful that the once great club is regarded by the rest of the country's bigger clubs as quite the vital commodity anymore.
So, something approaching a miracle is now required if the Republic's most successful club ever is to be spared the ignominy of life in the first division because the battle for survival was lost on the field last night where the draw they managed against Dublin City in this play-off second leg was not quite enough to prevent Dermot Keely's side replacing them in the top flight next year.
In his programme notes, the Dublin City chairman Ronan Seery came out swinging for those (and there are quite a few of them) who he feels have sought to undermine the club over the past year and, in particular, the last few days.
Those who knock City, though, rarely do it with regard to the players the club manages to get out on the pitch. Rather, their problem lies in the stands where despite tireless work by Seery the club still struggles to put bums on seats in anything like serious numbers. Last night, of course, was an exception. The match attracted a crowd of heading for 4,000, but that was attributable largely to the occasion and the opponents. More stark is the fact that there were almost as many accredited media at last night's game (77) as there were officially recorded paying punters (85) at the club's worst attended home game of the season - against Limerick last month.
Rovers, however, can hardly afford to sneer. A sense of the numbers in which they now deal might be gleaned from the fact that John Walshe, the goalkeeper hurriedly signed to fill in for the injured Barry Murphy, was officially paid €50 to come back for this, the club's most important game for years.
The visitors, to be fair, dominated the early stages of the game and restricted City to just one chance of note over the first 45 minutes, a Robbie Collins header from an Aidan Lynch cross. Quite how they didn't put one of their own chances away during that time, however, remains something of a mystery.
On at least three occasions the City defence seemed simply to crumble at the first sign of pressure but Rovers, playing with just one out and out striker, Tony Sheridan, and two advanced widemen, never had anyone on hand to provide the required finish.
Out on the right, Trevor Molloy was the main source of the danger with one shot and a couple of low crosses causing something approaching mayhem around City's six-yard box but the half's best chance fell to one of Alan O'Neill's three-man central midfield, Cathal O'Connor, who blasted what fleetingly looked a certain goal from 10 yards only to see Alan Keely make the required block.
Rovers repeatedly failed to take advantage and with a season packed with setbacks both on and off the pitch apparently denting their confidence to the extent that they were incapable of asserting themselves when the opportunity to do so finally came their way.
Still, the goal they conceded nine minutes into the second half came against the run of play and must have seemed a cruel blow to the club's desperately anxious supporters at a time when a breakthrough looked far more likely at the other end.
Robbie Collins scored it from eight yards after quick thinking by Trevor Vaughan but it had been a poor pass by Mark Rutherford and a failed attempt to deal with it by Keith Doyle that had provided the opportunity in the first place.
With Rovers suddenly needing to score twice in order to force extra-time, there was stunned silence in the riverside stand but there was only time for a brief chorus of taunts from the City fans facing them before Derek Tracey, the club's longest serving player by quite a distance, grabbed an equaliser when he met a Rutherford cross with a left footed drive that clipped the post on the way in.
Briefly, there was unrestrained joy amongst the beleaguered Rovers fans but for those of a Hooped persuasion what followed thereafter was an agonising finale to a truly grim year. Twice more the team went close to scoring - neither McDonnell could quite believe they'd missed when given free headers from five yards out - but the goal never came and so, barring a last gasp intervention by either the Gods or the league's egm, whatever is left of this side when March comes around will start getting used to life in the lowly first division.
DUBLIN CITY: Kennedy; Lynch (Pender, half-time), Keely, Whelehan, Hedderman; Scully (Kelly, 67 mins), McGill, Shiels, Collins; Vaughan (Mulcahy, 76 mins), Freeman.
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Walshe; Sweetman, Shelley, Foley (Roche, 85 mins), Doyle; Molloy, McDonnell, Tracey, O'Connor, Rutherford (Kenny, 80 mins); Sheridan.
Referee: D Hancock (Dublin).
