After such a tightly-fought cup encounter on Friday, Bohemians regained the lead role in the three-club campaign to keep the championship alive in exciting style at Dalymount Park last night.
Both sides threw themselves forward during a memorable second half but the home side had done just enough to earn their victory in the first when Mark Rutherford's outstanding goal had given them an advantage that Wanderers never managed to cancel out.
In contrast to the Rovers game, Roddy Collins's side got the upper hand early on, pushing the ball around well against a Bray team whose 34-3 formation suggested they'd come to win but whose inability to get on top in midfield meant it was always going to be a tall order.
The ease with which Bohemians players were able to carry the ball through the centre of the Wanderers team was a problem virtually from the opening minutes. Paul Byrne created the first scoring chance of the night with a spectacular long range free that soared just over but Shaun Maher then carved out a much better opportunity by dodging his way past a string of challengers only to send a poorly struck free-kick straight into the arms of John Walsh.
If the home side made the better start then Bray at least had a strong say towards the end of the half when former Bohemians player Dave Williamson, in particular, caused the local defence quite a few problems. They couldn't quite manage to seriously test Wayne Russell, though, with the goalkeeper forced into making just one save during the whole period when he got down to his right and pushed his former team-mate's low shot around the post.
Their failure to make the pressure tell ended up costing Wanderers as eight minutes later Mark Rutherford led a break out of defence and, despite having options on either side, chose to carry on himself, skipping past Colm Tresson and then slipping the ball past John Walsh to score after what must have been a run of over 60 metres.
Pat Devlin reacted at the break by throwing Mick Doohan up front and reverting to a more conventional four-man defence but it was Bohemians's game that seemed to gather pace with Rutherford a constant threat.
The closeness of the race for second place meant it stayed lively until the end.
Bohemians: Russell; O'Connor, Maher, Hill, Webb; Byrne, Fullam (Hunt, 65 mins), Caffrey, Rutherford; Crowe (O'Neill, 84 mins), Molloy.
Bray Wanderers: Walsh; Lynch, Tresson, Doohan; Gifford, Fox, Long (K O'Brien, 84 mins), Keogh (Ryan, 84 mins); O'Connor, Byrne, Williamson (Gormley, 63 mins).
Referee: H Byrne (Dublin).
