Title battle back on as champions come unstuck

Close to done and dusted a couple of weeks ago, the title race was ripped wide open in Inchicore last night when Bohemians beat the defending champions in one of the contests of the season.

The win edges the visitors a good deal closer to safety after a fairly wretched run of results. It also hands Cork City, who take on Dundalk at Turner's Cross tomorrow, the chance to go top again on goal difference.

Just as in the Cup in Galway last week, St Patrick's were in no small measure the architects of their own demise. Certainly this latest blow had as many of their own fingerprints on it as those of their opponents.

The first 15 minutes were calamitous for the home team with Bohemians getting forward twice and finding the net on both occasions. A cracking Tommy Byrne strike that clattered back off the underside of the bar led to the first in the seventh minute. With Trevor Wood well beaten, Graham Lawlor was the first to react to the rebound.

Worse followed six minutes later. Paul Byrne's curling cross from the right was touched down neatly by his namesake Tommy, and Kevin Hunt's shot took a deflection on the way past the goalkeeper.

Liam Buckley's side had only once previously conceded two goals at Richmond Park this season and on that occasion they had salvaged a draw by raising the tempo against Finn Harps to a couple of notches above frantic.

Bohemians' need for points was great last night and their commitment was apparent even if the game didn't always run smoothly for them. Indeed, at times Roddy Collins's men played like hybrids of speed skaters and headless chickens.

A David Fairclough cameo in the second half provided the perfect illustration of that. Goalkeeper Michael Dempsey clearly had Paul Osam's through ball covered when Fairclough stuck his foot in, the ball flying up in the air for Trevor Molloy to head home. The suspicion then was that St Patrick's would dig themselves out of a hole again.

They had actually seen enough of the ball and created enough clear-cut chances to have won the game a couple of times over. Dempsey, while giving his teammates a few frights along the way, had made a few last-ditch stops and there been a couple of goalline clearances. Goals, as they have been in recent weeks, were difficult to come by, though.

With Eddie Gormley missing, even St Patrick's set-pieces lacked their usual menace and close to a dozen corners (Bohemians did not have even one) failed to yield much more than the odd scramble around the six yard box.

As the end of the game neared, the visitors clearly sensed they had what it required to take all three points. They underlined the point three minutes from time when Derek Swan helped Lawlor to his second of the night. It had been coming for a while, and the veteran striker should have put his striking partner clean through moments earlier.

When a second chance presented itself, Swan grasped it wonderfully, though. With a marvellous twist of the body, he skipped past Packie Lynch and headed goalwards. Then, as the last defender closed in, he unleashed a powerful drive which Wood could only push in Lawlor's direction. After that, scoring was only a matter of the 20-year-old keeping his head.

The question now is, can Cork keep theirs?

ST PATRICK'S: Wood; McGuinness, Lynch, Hawkins; Burke, Croly, Osam, Russell, Doyle; Molloy, Gilzean. Subs: Devereux for Russell (half-time), Reilly for Molloy (68 mins), Braithwaite for Gilzean (80 mins).

BOHEMIANS: Dempsey; O'Connor, Maher, Mullen, Fairclough; P Byrne, O'Hanlon, Hunt, T Byrne; Swan, Lawlor. Subs: Mooney for P Byrne (59 mins).

Referee: D O'Hanlon (Waterford).