Shamrock Rovers 0 Dundalk 2
Pat Fenlon was complaining in the run-up to this game that Dundalk had gloated about clinching the title here last season but his side suffered a bad night and they may be having their noses rubbed in it again towards the year’s end for the champions could at this rate quite conceivably make it three in a row when they return in mid-October.
Whatever happens between now and then, though,, they have already taken a point more in Tallaght than they managed from two visits in 2015 while a third defeat in five games means Rovers head to Cork on Monday seven points adrift of the leaders and with their flying start to the new season quickly fading in the memory.
Stephen Kenny’s side clearly deserved their victory here although for the most part they simply had to bide their time through the opening stages and wait for the hosts to hand it to them on a plate.
The home fans must have found it difficult to fathom. Having savoured last week’s demolition job on Bohemians they got to witness their own team self-destruct this time out, a process that started early on when Dave Webster sought to cut out a low Darren Meenan cross but succeeded instead in turning it beyond his own goalkeeper and into the net.
There had been nothing in up until then with the two sides doing little more than size each other up, but the visitors immediately assumed the air of a side that had the upper hand after the goal, a sense of supremacy that was multiplied after Gary McCabe’s lunge at Stephen O’Donnell earned him a red card 15 minutes before the break.
It was ridiculous stuff by the midfielder. The two-footed challenge was uncalled for in any circumstances but Dundalk were posing absolutely no threat 40 metres out as the thought must have been going through his mind and the whistle had actually gone for a separate foul by the time the contact was made. A few feet away, Fenlon must have known as McCabe passed him on the way towards the tunnel that the game was pretty much up.
If he was still harbouring any hope of a comeback, it was extinguished a minute into the second half when Dundalk doubled their lead. Ronan Finn had been booed by the locals every time he got the ball before the break but when he started then coolly finished the move that led to his current side’s second the home support must have wished the 28-year-old still wore hoops these days.
Fenlon threw on Danny North in the hope that the striker might somehow have one of his more memorable nights but the comeback never looked to be remotely on the cards. Despite having lost O’Donnell’s calming influence at the interval, the visitors did more than enough in midfield to hold their own and Daryl Horgan almost got the goal his own performance deserved after some quick footwork by Finn set him up for a shot from edge of the area.
Gavin Brennan stopped the strike just short of the line, though, and having failed to get their third, Dundalk seemed to start easing their way to the final whistle. Still, there were chances for Pat McEleney and John Mountney and a sense throughout that they could go back up through the gears as easily as they were going down through them should the situation require it.
It might have, had Rovers got even one back, but the closest they came was when Simon Madden whipped a low ball in across the face the goal and North watched it speed harmlessly by. Towards the end Brandon Miele tried his luck from distance but that went well wide and as the final whistle went and a certain amount of ill will spilled over between the two benches, it was hard to think of an occasion when Gary Rogers had had to seriously exert himself.
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Murphy; Madden, Webster, Blanchard, G Brennan; Cregg, K Brennan; D Clarke (North, 52 mins), McCabe, Miele; Drennan (T Clarke, 81 mins).
DUNDALK: Rogers; Gannon, Gartland, Boyle, Massey; Shields, O'Donnell (Benson, half-time); Meenan (Mountney, 77 mins), Finn, Horgan; McMillan (McEleney, 72 mins).
Referee: N Doyle (Dublin).
