Shelbourne fail to break down stubborn champions

The games between this pair last season were seen as a great advertisement for the Nation League but yesterday's encounter left a lot to be desired.

It was only in the closing 10 minutes or so that we were treated to anything approaching the quality of football that had been expected from the contest. Then it was Shelbourne, playing with 10 men since Pat Scully's sending off in the 25th minute and trailing by a goal, who finally decided to play a bit of ball.

Their opponents, perhaps by that point understandably, were having none of it. They hadn't often looked keen to exploit their numerical superiority but through the closing stages they defended so deep and densely that the home side found themselves camped on the edge of the St Patrick's box for long spells while only once threatening to score. Pat Morley had the solitary chance but misdirected Eoin Heery's cross. Against the champions in this sort of mood, he and his team-mates probably knew the slip up would prove costly.

And so it did. The defeat leaves a team that came within a whisker of winning the title in May 14th 14 points behind Cork City and 11 adrift of the team that snatched the championship on the last day of the season. Dermot Keely admits that the situation warrants concern "but what can you do?", he wonders "if we were playing badly then it would be easier for a manager, you could criticise some players but I can't criticise anybody for the way they've played out there today or over the last few games."

For the most part he was right. Shelbourne had had the better of most of yesterday's game, and, in the second half particularly, players like Tony Sheridan and Greg Costello did very well for the hosts. Maybe Scully, though, could do with a clip around the ear for his dismissal because it was clearly self-inflicted and certainly had a sizeable bearing on what happened afterwards.

The tackle that earned him his marching orders, a trip on Trevor Molloy, wasn't that bad, but there was no doubt that he had to go. The real problem had been 22 minutes earlier when Scully had taken out Ian Gilzean with a nasty looking challenge from behind.

A less generous man than Dick O'Hanlon would have sent the Shelbourne player packing at that point but then someone less soft-hearted than this referee would have waved a good few more cards about during the rest of a game that had all the ferocity usually associated with derby games.

One of the ones most sinned against, and not just by Scully, was Molloy with the young Dubliner's runs posing the only real problems that the home side had to contend with through the bulk of the first half.

The striker had more motivation to perform than most for Ian Evans, who can't seem to find room for Molloy in his under-21 squad's these days, was sitting in the stand and there was clearly a point to be made.

Having been tugged around and jostled about by his markers for most of the half he duly made it in the 45th minute. Martin Russell sent in a free from the left that reached Molloy well beyond the far post. The shot, from a very tight angle, was fiercely struck and precise and as Alan Gough scurried across his goal line it was already too late to prevent it reaching the back of the net.

Thereafter the champions more or less shut up shop.

Afterwards, Liam Buckley conceded that, largely because of his players' unfamiliarity with playing a five man midfield, they had allowed the home side too much space in the centre of the field in which to play over the closing stages but, he said "we defended well out there and Shelbourne were reduced to putting it high into the box." Not a word of a lie there but, against 10 men, not the proudest of boasts either from the manager of the defending champions.

Shelbourne: Gough; Costello, Scully, McCarthy, D Geoghegan; Heery, Fitzgerald, Fenlon, Keddy; Sheridan, S Geoghegan. Subs: O'Flahery for Keddy (54 mins), Morley for Baker (75 mins).

St Patrick's Athletic: Wood; Moody, Lynch, McGuinness; Croly, Gormley, Osam, Russell, Doyle; Gilzean, Molloy. Subs: Reilly for Gilzean (69 mins), Long for Gormley (84 mins), Braithwaite for Molloy (88 mins).

Referee: D O'Hanlon (Waterford).