By Shane Breslin
As the League of Ireland season enters its decisive stage, it’s a case of capital punishment at the top with Shamrock Rovers leading the way and the chasing pack now reduced to two of their Dublin rivals.
Eight goals in little more than 72 hours have seen Rovers maintain their five-point lead at the top, but late winners from St Patrick’s Athletic and defending champions Bohemians on their travels on Monday night ensure that the champagne corks in Tallaght remain resolutely unpopped.
Going into the weekend, Sligo Rovers and the fourth member of the capital’s leading lights, Sporting Fingal, were also in the running in one of the most open (if a little too Dublin-centric) title races in recent memory, but both sides look out of contention having seen good winning sequences brought to an end by St Pats over the past four days. On Friday, Sligo’s run of league victories was stopped at four following a goalless draw at Richmond Park, while Monday night saw Fingal – seeking a fourth straight win of their own – come out on the wrong end of a Morton Stadium turkey-shoot, where a half-time 1-0 lead became a 3-2 defeat following a stirring smash-and-grab by Pete Mahon’s steadfast Saints.
Pats deserve plenty of credit for forcing their way into the title race early and maintaining their challenge into the final quarter of the season. Manager Pete Mahon was compelled to overhaul the playing squad in Inchicore this year, with just a handful of those who swash-buckled in Europe last year, and just plain buckled at home, retained once stringent budget cuts were implemented before the start of the season.
Of the 11 who started arguably the most noteworthy victory in the club’s history, over Russian Premier League side Krylia Sovetov a little over a year ago, just four were in Mahon’s line-up for the trip to Santry on Monday night. The new recruits were dominated by players snapped up from the lower reaches of the top flight (Shane Guthrie and Vinny Faherty from Galway United, Derek Pender from Bray, Conor Kenna from Drogheda) or the First Division (David McAllister and Derek Doyle from Shelbourne), but if the pattern suggested that a difficult season lay ahead, Mahon’s side have offered a rebuttal to the prognosis with virtually every passing weekend.
However, the rigours of a full season fighting it out at the top are bound to take their toll on a slender squad and for all that Mahon deserves the plaudits for making light of the budget cuts, Pats will fall short in the final reckoning. If there is to be a challenger to Shamrock Rovers’ pre-eminence, one would expect it to be Bohs, despite the extent of their problems both on and off the field.
A response was expected and necessary from the champions of the past two seasons following the manner of their defeat at home to Galway United eleven days ago, and while they’ve hardly been in vintage form, they’ve duly taken three straight wins in the space of a week to keep themselves in the mix for that third successive title.
Scent
Pat Fenlon’s men could yet get the scent of blood in their nostrils, and if an era is to end at Dalymount Park when the season draws to a close in November, there would be no better way to bow out than by denying their most strident rivals a breakthrough league title.
Rovers were two points clear with four games remaining last season but won just once thereafter to gift the title to Bohs. As the Hoops close in on a vitally important piece of silverware – the first title for the country’s most successful club since it brought an end to 22 years of cardboard-boxing it around Dublin’s mean streets – memories of that lapse will begin to resurface. Fans of the league leaders can be thankful, then, that manager Martin O’Neill was able to freshen up and improve his squad in the close-season. He may have let a good ‘un slip through his fingers with the decision to sanction the transfer of Padraig Amond to Sligo Rovers, but the majority of O’Neill’s moves have paid dividends.
While goalkeeper Alan Mannus and former Cork City title-winners Dan Murray and Danny Murphy have added steely know-how at the back, Billy Dennehy and, most recently and controversially, Neale Fenn have proved shrewd acquisitions further forward. Fenn, who u-turned his way out of retirement and a contract at Dundalk to join the title favourites earlier this month, made his first league appearance for Rovers against Bray on Friday night and was introduced at half-time against UCD on Monday.
The fans are not yet convinced, but O’Neill has spoken in glowing terms of what Fenn can offer the team, particularly in the ongoing absence of the similarly deep-lying forward Dessie Baker, and the stats would suggest to back that up. In just 90 minutes of the Fenn-Gary Twigg twosome – the first half against Bray, the second against UCD – Rovers have helped themselves to six goals.
With a two-match suspension looming for Twigg, who has become nothing less than a folk hero in 18 short months as a Hoop, the news that Baker is nearing a return to action is a welcome development for O’Neill. When everyone’s available, the Rovers manager will face a selection headache in attack for the run-in, and if that’s the worst headache he has to cope with over the next ten weeks or so, all will be rosy in the camp.
But when did the League of Ireland ever do rosy? It’s intermission time this weekend as attention switches to the FAI Cup, but expect a few plot turns when the final act begins.
This week’s results:
Friday:
Dundalk 1-2 Bohemians
Galway Utd 2-1 Drogheda Utd
St Patrick’s Athletic 0-0 Sligo Rovers
UCD 1-2 Sporting Fingal
Shamrock Rovers 4-1 Bray Wanderers
Monday:
Drogheda Utd 0-1 Bohemians
Shamrock Rovers 4-1 UCD
Sporting Fingal 2-3 St Patrick’s Athletic
This week’s fixtures:
FAI Ford Cup – fourth round (all Friday night, 7.45pm unless stated):
Bohemians v Shelbourne
Cork City Foras v Monaghan Utd
Galway Utd v Salthill Devon
St Patrick’s Athletic v Belgrove
UCD v Bray Wanderers
Sporting Fingal v Limerick FC
Finn Harps v Sligo Rovers (8pm)
Longford Town v Shamrock Rovers (8pm)
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