IT MAY be scarcely a quarter way into the new campaign but it seems a second of the pre-season title favourites have begun to emerge from what was reckoned to be a crisis.
Shamrock Rovers got a draw here in Santry a few weeks back ahead of their first clash of the year with the champions out in Tallaght, and last night their rivals ended a run of two draws and three defeats by beating Liam Buckley’s side thanks to goals late in the first half from Paul Keegan and Gareth McGlynn.
Defeat last night would have left Bohemians 10 points adrift of league leaders St Patrick’s Athletic and prompted inevitable questions after the promise of three straight wins in their opening games.
And for the bulk of the first period a fourth successive loss looked entirely likely, but the goals transformed the game and the visitors ended up coasting through the second half.
As his team went in for the break, Buckley must have been wondering quite how things had unravelled so badly in the preceding 10 minutes.
For the most part, the hosts had been dominant and as Bohemians were obliged to defend, sometimes a little frantically, a succession of corners, they also seemed incapable of posing a threat in attack.
Sporting, though, were far from ruthless when it came to converting their chances. Glen Crowe spurned two pretty decent close -range opportunities – the first a volley he blasted over, the second a header he misdirected rather spectacularly – while Stephen Paisley squandered a free header and Kenny Browne saw his considerably better effort clip the inside of the left-hand post before being the rebound was scrambled away.
Bohemians tried to make headway by having Rafaelle Cretaro run at left back Lorcan Fitzgerald from out wide but it wasn’t until the former Sligo Rovers striker limped off injured to be replaced by Anto Murphy that the visitors managed to make serious inroads.
The substitute was instrumental in the first goal of the night after 39 minutes, with his initial throw from the right harmless enough but his follow-up cross requiring just the faintest of touches by Keegan to turn it past Darren Quigley.
If that wasn’t enough of a shock to the home side’s system, they were two down within four minutes, with McGlynn left entirely to his own devices just beyond the edge of the area until he finally decided to stick the ball in the bottom right-hand corner.
It was an unpromising position from which to start the second half and the game settled into a fairly predictable pattern of Sporting pushing forward in search of a goal while Bohemians tried to catch them on the break.
Neither actually looked like scoring. Conan Byrne and, occasionally, O’Neill managed to cause some problems for the likes of Mark Rossiter and Ken Oman but Barry Murphy was scarcely troubled in the visitors’ goal, though the sight of him at one stage completely missing a floated cross from the right must have given the hosts a little hope.
It didn’t come to anything, though and a low-driven free by Keegan that Quigley had to get down quickly to was as close as the game came to producing another goal, despite Buckley looking to inject a little more attacking impetus with some a couple of changes late on.
Things got worse for the home side when Fitzgerald was dismissed for a second bookable offence. Bohemians by then looked happy to conserve their energies for what they hope will be the next stage of their league revival against UCD on Friday.
SPORTING FINGAL:Quigley; O'Brien, Browne, Paisley, Fitzgerald; McFaul (James, 77 mins); Finn, Williams Kirby (77 mins); Byrne, O'Neill, Crowe (Zayed, 68 mins).
BOHEMIANS:Murphy; Shelley, Oman, McGuinness, Rossiter; Keegan, Cronin; Cretaro (Murphy, 32 mins (Higgins,92 mins)), McGlynn, Quigley; Byrne (Madden, 51 mins).
Referee:A Buttimer (Cork).
Attendance:1,564
