Shamrock Rovers 0 Dundalk 2 AFTER A FIRST season out in Tallaght when nothing was won but expectations were still significantly raised, Shamrock Rovers continued to dampen the spirits of their followers yesterday with a second home defeat in five days.
Tuesday’s loss had been at least partially put down to St Patrick’s Athletic’s greater success in dealing with the difficult conditions, but there were no such excuses here with Rovers simply turning in a substandard performance against a slightly reorganised but greatly improved Dundalk side whose victory was their first in 17 league games over the Dubliners.
Having been central to their second-half revival against Drogheda a week ago, Neale Fenn was key to the visitors’ victory here too, scoring his side’s first goal with delightful nonchalance after 35 minutes after Ross Gaynor had capitalised on an Aidan Price misjudgment and then setting up their second seven minutes after the break when he turned Liam Burns’ free into the path of Stephen Maher to drive home.
It could have been a good deal worse for the hosts with Alan Mannus inexplicably escaping any sanction at all when he took Gaynor down on the edge of his area midway through the second half.
A clearance by Price had come straight back from midfield and the goalkeeper attempted to let it run into his box so he could pick it up. A little too late, though, he realised that Gaynor was going to close him down first and after the winger had pushed the ball past him, Mannus tried to clear but succeeded only in taking his opponent out.
The challenge was fractionally outside the box but it looked a certain goal had it not been for the foul and Mannus might very well have walked leaving an outfield player to take his place given that O’Neill had already used all of his substitutions.
Paul Tuite, though, enraged the visitors by waving play on. However, the hosts failed to capitalise on the let-off and produced only a couple of half-chances through the closing 20 minutes or so.
“The players aren’t stupid,” said O’Neill after the game and more than half an hour in the dressing room, “they’re not sitting in there thinking they’ve done well. They know they have to improve and it’s up to all of us to make that happen next week in Galway.”
Asked about the implications for the club’s title aspirations of falling eight points off the pace just three games into the campaign, O’Neill replied: “We’re not even thinking of the title. We’re thinking of Galway. A lot of people said we had a team capable of maintaining a challenge this season and I thought so myself but we certainly don’t look that way just now.”
SHAMROCK ROVERS:Mannus; Sullivan, Murray, Price, Stephens; Kavanagh (O'Connor, 52 mins), Bayly, Rice (Bradley (half-time), Cahill; Dennehy, Barrett (Cowan, 59 mins).
DUNDALK:Cherrie; Kelly, Burns, Breen, Hatswell; Kuduzovic, Melligan (McGuigan, 92 mins), Miller, Maher, Gaynor (Murphy, 87 mins); Fenn (Synnott, 82 mins).
Referee:P Tuite (Dublin).
