Fagan back on Saints goal trail

Christy Fagan rediscovered his goal touch last night to keep St Patrick’s Athletic’s tenuous hopes of snatching the title alive.

The striker hadn’t scored in his previous five games and was dropped to the bench for last Friday’s win at Bohemians. But he came good last night with a stunning winner on 70 minutes.

The once again impressive Sean O’Connor whipped over a super cross from the right and Fagan flashed a header to the corner of the net for his ninth league goal of the season.

Vinny Faherty added a second goal for the Saints four minutes into added time when beating keeper Chris Bennion to O’Connor’s cross to head into an empty net.

It was Shelbourne’s fifth home league defeat on the spin as they finished with 10 men when Anto Murphy was shown a straight red card for raising his hand to O’Connor.

In a lively start, O’Connor worked Bennion with a low drive from distance on three minutes.

Shelbourne were well in it though, and had a couple of penalty shouts for handballs ignored before Barry Clancy fired inches wide with a terrific volley from 20 yards.

But the woodwork rescued Shelbourne at the other end on 24 minutes — Darren Meenan bouncing a spectacular dipping volley onto Bennion’s crossbar.

Ian Ryan brilliantly cleared off the Shelbourne line four minutes later from O’Connor’s fierce low shot.

Conan Byrne came in to inject a bit of urgency to Shelbourne’s attack and he fired narrowly wide on 64 minutes as Alan Mathews’ sides enjoyed a spell of pressure before their late collapse.

SHELBOURNE: Bennion; Ryan, Boyle, Paisley, S Byrne (P Byrne 82); Murphy, Hurley, Dawson, Clancy (C Byrne, 56); Cassidy; Hughes (Gorman 67).

ST. PATRICK’S ATHLETIC: Murphy; O’Brien, Kenna, Browne, Carroll; Chambers, Macedo (Coombes 46), Bolger; O‘Connor, Fagan (Faherty 82), Meenan (Forrester 67).

Referee: Anthony Buttimer (Cork).