Shels pass Rovers test on sticky pitch
Shelbourne’s head coach Damien Duff with his players after the game against Shamrock Rovers. Picture: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy
A sticky test on a sticky pitch was passed by leaders Shelbourne to keep champions Shamrock Rovers three points at bay.
Both managers were booked and Shels substitute Shane Farrell walked for incurring two impetuous bookings 12 minutes apart but this was low grade turgid stuff overall.
Nobody could blame former Liverpool midfielder Charlie Adam, seeking another bargain buy for Fleetwood Town, for fleeing before full-time.
Demand to witness the Damien Duff revolution had exceeded supply but this was the fixture flagged as the one to feature extra terracing to lift the attendance above 5,000 for the first time since the glory days of the mid-noughties. A midweek school night mitigated against that threshold being reached.
Had the original FAI disciplinary committee decision stood, the much-awaited top-of-the table clash would have been played behind entirely closed doors.
That was the sanction they applied for an adolescent Shels fan throwing a smoke bomb onto the Drogheda United pitch that struck assistant referee Dermot Broughton, necessitating a late break in play for treatment.
Gone is the era of the City Hall FAI using colourful pyrotechnics to promote the domestic product and their proliferation as the crowds rocket was bound to invoke a test case.
A swiftly-assembled appeal grouping, however, dropped the home element of the punishment to mirror the away supporters ban meted out to Bohemians for their incident earlier in the season. Home side Galway were the only ones to feel the cost last Friday.
Wise sages would argue this spectacle – carried live on Virgin Media too – was never going to be sacrificed to administer a lesson and there was a full roster of FAI top brass in Drumcondra to sample the fervour.
David Courell, the stand-in for deposed chief executive Jonathan Hill, led the battalion but most eyes were on Marc Canham, the director of football responsible for sourcing the men’s team manager.
Here he could see for himself the two bright young things of LOI management. Stephen Bradley has within his grasp an historic first-ever five in a row, Damien Duff reviving history by mounting a title bid for a side three years ago cocooned in the second tier.
It could be his dedication to the Shels project or aversion to the FAI – possibly both - that convinced Duff to ignore an indirect approach for an interview about the vacancy. That was in the context of a flightpath towards a February appointment but with the break in play until a summer appointment and a change of guard at the top, maybe the mood could alter. Unlikely.
Bradley was another candidate they showed lukewarm interest in, only to botch the mechanics.
It’s the basics and big stuff that has the game hamstrung. A modern stadium rather than the relic that is Tolka would make it more attractive to families but the plea for significant facilities upgrades is undermined when surfaces like this stage such significant occasions.
Duff volunteered after the recent stalemate to bring his Dad Gerry’s roll-on lawnmower inside the gates and that proposition won’t be laughed at after the quality was again compromised by the heavy turf. On the bobble count, Shels could be declared champions by now.
Integral to soaring ahead at the summit was an early season win over Rovers, embedded by two goals inside the opening 20 minutes.
They could have found themselves two goals behind within the same span of this rematch. First to threaten was Pico Lopes, the Rovers captain watching his diving header from a Darragh Burns’ left-wing cross crash off the upright within 90 seconds of kick-off.
Richie Towell was first to the rebound, with his shot deflected wide by JJ Lunney, a similar scenario Josh Honohan experienced shortly afterwards.
It was also a centre-back who posed the threat for Shels. Paddy Barrett was alert to a quickly taken free-kick directed to the edge of the penalty box by Matty Smith and his first-time low shot required Leon Pohls to dive full-stretch and turn the ball around his post.
Those were samplers that didn’t lead to main courses, for neither stopper was seriously tested thereafter. When Reds striker John Martin was found in the box by his namesake O’Sullivan, breath was held but he squirted his effort straight at the goalkeeper.
Farrell’s silliness turned the last 15 minutes into a containment mission for Shels but they’ll take the point, trundling on towards the first third of the season juncture as the team to catch.
C Kearns; S Gannon, P Barrett, G Molloy, K Ledwidge; J O’Sullivan, JJ Lunney, T Wilson (E Caffrey 62); M Smith (S Boyd 75), J Martin (S Farrell 62), W Jarvis (D Williams 90+1).
L Pohls; D Cleary, R Lopes, J Honohan; D Burns, D Watts, C Noonan, T Clarke (S Kavanagh 72); R Towell (R Gaffney 62, D Nugent; J Kenny (A Greene 62).
Rob Hennessy (Limerick).
4,628.
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