NO GOALS BUT a blizzard of cards, a healthy infusion of needle and that unique mixture of affronted frustration that is the tenor of many of these Dublin derbies.
Shelbourne ended the game with 10 men after Shane Farrell was sent off 11 minutes after he was introduced from the bench, but they also ended then night at the top of the table, three clear of a Rovers side who have moved up to second. The champions have a game in hand and are denuded by injury, and the latter fact was part of the reason they didn’t do enough to win a game that was sadly stymied by the fact the pitch was the equivalent of trying to play football on a quarry floor.
Shelbourne were without Mark Coyle, while Rovers were even further depleted compared to last Friday’s win in Derry, with Graham Burke absent from the squad and sitting in the squad with Jack Byrne, Aaron McEneff and Lee Grace: a reminder that they are keeping title pace without remotely hitting their stride.
Behind them sat a roll call of LOI managers. Newly-installed Dundalk boss Noel King beamed at old friends with the man he replaced, Stephen O’Donnell, sitting only a few rows to his left. Bohs boss Alan Reynolds was here too, as was Keith Long, sitting with his multi-club brother Charlie Adam, currently in charge of Fleetwood. The FAI’s interim CEO David Courell and director of football Marc Canham were present too: they can’t appoint a manager but tonight they didn’t have to look too far to find one.
It was a rat-a-tat start. Rovers flew out of the traps, with Roberto Lopes stooping to head against the crossbar after only two minutes. Shels held that early Rovers onslaught at bay before kicking into gear themselves. Leon Pohls dived sharply to his left to tip away a snapshot in the box from Paddy Barrett, while moments later Matty Smith toe-poked tamely at the Rovers keeper when he pounced on an acrobatic-half clearance by Lopes.
Will Jarvis followed suit moments later, another generous shot right at Pohls after cutting blithely inside Dan Cleary. The punch and counter-punch of a concussive opening quarter slowly dissipated, however, with both sides becoming more focused on their own footwork than throwing any more haymakers. The primary reason for that was the bobbly, sand-daubed pitch. The caprice of the surface made any kind of slick and carefree football almost impossible. One untimely bobble saw Josh Honohan swipe an attempted pass onto the roof of the stand, while minutes later Conor Kearns did the same at the opposite end of the pitch.
Shelbourne assumed the better part of possession in the first half without creating many chances, while Johnny Kenny offered Rovers’ most obvious threat on the counter-attack: Barrett took a yellow card without complaint having felled Kenny when he threatened to skip clean through.
Shels’ bloodless control was swapped for Rovers’ after the break, but they couldn’t parlay their control into anything resembling a clear-cut chance. Both managers went to their benches just after the hour mark: Aaron Greene and Rory Gaffney were introduced by Stephen Bradley, while Duff turned to Shane Farrell and Evan Caffrey. A yellow card for Farrell within a couple of minutes of his introduction was the only immediate spark from any of the four of them.
Shels decided to throw on Sean Boyd and used a curiously-timed injury to their goalkeeper to rush to the bench for a tactical reshuffle.
The best laid plans and all that. Within a minute Farrell fouled Darragh Nugent, picked up a second yellow card and was gone. Duff was thus forced to go to plan 3.0, which was the stuff of flint and gritted teeth. He espoused this philosophy in his screaming exhortations to Will Jarvis shortly after the red card: RUUUUUN!!! JUST FUCKING RUUUUN!!
The Tolka atmosphere rose in defiance as tempers flared. Boyd and Honohan were each booked when they clashed after a clearance, and the managers defrayed the rising tension on the touchline by embracing moments later. Just as well, given both had been booked at that stage. Truthfully Shels made it the bitty, imprecise endgame that suited them most. Not that the game exactly flowed while it was 11v11.
Rovers only laid siege in the last couple of the six added minutes, but Barrett, Gannon, and Shels stood firm: the only heart-in-mouth moment being Darragh Burns’ last-minute shot, which was deflected narrowly wide. Tolka Park pleaded for the whistle but the referee allowed Rovers take the corner, which Gannon rose highest to head clear.
While the game thrummed with intensity and underwhelmed as a spectacle, it was another night to show Shelbourne’s stickiness goes beyond their pitch.
Shelbourne: Conor Kearns; Sean Gannon, Paddy Barrett, Gavin Molloy, Kameron Ledwidge; JJ Lunney, Tyreke Wilson (Evan Caffrey, 63′); John O’Sullivan, Matty Smith (Sean Boyd, 73′), Will Jarvis (Dean Williams, 90′); John Martin (Shane Farrell, 63′)
Shamrock Rovers: Leon Pohls; Darragh Burns; Dan Cleary, Roberto Lopes, Josh Honohan; Trevor Clarke (Sean Kavanagh, 71′); Dylan Watts, Conan Noonan; Richie Towell (Aaron Greene, 63′), Darragh Nugent; Johnny Kenny (Rory Gaffney, 63′)
Attendance: 4,628
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