Killer Shamrock Rovers instinct shows against Bohs
Shamrock Rovers' Darragh Burns celebrates scoring his side’s second goal against Bohs. Picture: INPHO/Laszlo Geczo
Three close-range second goals earned champions Shamrock Rovers a resounding victory before the biggest league crowd this century but Bohemians will be thinking long-range in this new era.
Johnny Kenny had come off the bench a fortnight ago to supply the solitary goal at Galway United that got Rovers motoring with their first win of the season.
Cameos appeared to be the extent of the expectation on the striker, for Stephen Bradley claimed afterwards his absence of pre-season training restricted his involvement.
“Johnny starting?,” the Hoops manager pondered at Eamonn Deacy Park. “I think we're looking at him after this round of games.” Three matches earlier than scheduled then, Kenny was delegated the mission ruining the reintroduction of his U21 assistant boss Alan Reynolds to a senior club management role and duly obliged.
Marc Canham is the kingmaker of Irish football right now – preparing to finally anoint the new manager’s gaffer – but the FAI's supremo may dash the desire of Reynolds to combine both roles until the end of the Euro U21 campaign.
Rennie, whose club involvement since departing Waterford during the first Covid-19 interruption in 2020 was as assistant at Dundalk, Shelbourne, Derry City and his hometown Blues, was reunited with Pat Fenlon earlier this week.
The director of football has put his stamp on Dalymount after a 14-month period in which the three vital positions, academy director plus the women’s and men’s managers, have all changed personnel.
Attempting to end a five-year wait for a win at Tallaght just two days after his first training session was a bridge too far for Reynolds but it will be points against teams with less resources than Rovers he’ll be depended upon to extract.
He resisted the temptation of handing James Talbot his first action of the season after the goalkeeper returned from a break necessitated by the mental health trauma he revealed in the offseason.
There was scant tinkering from the one game the caretaker crew of Derek Pender and Trevor Croly oversaw, understandable given they saw off Derry City to lift the gloom.
This debut test leant heavier on tactical than selection nous, as the newcomer had to hatch a strategy to thwart Darragh Burns.
The pacey winger is another tyro Reynolds is familiar with through their U21 alliance and, in the cavity left by Neil Farrugia’s injury-enforced absence, the MK Dons loanee has excelled on the right flank.
That assignment was allocated to Dayle Rooney, traditionally a winger himself, and it showed as he was floundering from the early skirmishes.
He wasn’t the only one badly exposed. Aboubacar Keita arrived in Dublin with quite a reputation as an American U20 international on loan from Colorado Rapid.
Yet this was a Dublin derby debut to forget after he was hooked with 20 minutes left having been brushed off the ball for the third goal.
Bizarrely, only for an uncharacteristic heavy touch by James Clarke when fed by Dyaln Connolly six yards out, Bohs might have gone into the interval ahead.
That was all they could muster on a night the class of Rovers told, albeit eventually.
Burns had gotten one sight at goal 10 minutes before the break by latching onto Daniel Cleary’s pass. His backheel took out Patrick Kirk but Kacper Chorazka shoveled the rising shot over the crossbar.
Pico Lopes and man-of-the-match, Corkman Josh Honohan, squandered headers from corners but it wasn’t until the second half that the killer instinct of the champions came to the fore.
Within three minutes of the restart, a half-cleared delivery by Bohs was pounced upon.
Jevon Mills could only head the Burns cross to Dylan Watts, whose scuffed shot from 20 yards was gobbled up by Kenny who controlled the ball with one touch and finished it with his second. Kirk had played him onside.
Exactly four minutes later and the second was produced from the same left side. A pirouette by Burke darted him to the endline and Rooney was caught cold by the cross, enabling Burns to nip in and smash his shot into the corner.
Bohs simply couldn’t defend crosses, evidenced by Aaron Greene rolling the ball into an empty net from Darragh Nugent’s centre, with Keite all at sea.
An exodus of Gypsies fans meant a chunk missed their consolation from sub Declan McDaid, availing of hesitancy by Leon Pohls in the Rovers goal with the last kick of the match.
Though still in honeymoon territory, they’ll be anticipating better in Galway on Monday.
L Pohls; D Cleary, R Lopes, L Grace; D Burns (T Clarke 81), D Watts (R Towell 70), G O’Neill (M Poom 58), J Honohan; D Nugent, G Burke (C Noonan 81); J Kenny (A Greene 71).
K Chorazka; J Mills, A Keita (J McManus 77), P Kirk; M Lilander, J Flores, A McDonnell (D Grant 64), D Rooney; D Connolly (B McManus 64), J Clarke; J Akintunde (D McDaid 71).
Robert Harvey (Dublin).
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