League of Ireland/Shamrock Rovers 1 Drogheda Utd 2:It may be much maligned in terms of match report intros but sometimes, folks, you simply have to bow to the inevitable . . . this was a game of two halves. The first was atrocious, but the second more than made up for it, with Rovers earning a deserved ovation from their fans at the end for the way they battled even if they couldn't quite find the finish required during four frantic minutes of injury-time to cancel out the second of Shane Robinson's two goals against his former club.

Unbeaten in six away from home since the start of the season, Drogheda arrived with more reason than most to fancy their chances but Rovers had readapted rather well over the first six week of the campaign to life in the top flight and they showed from early on they would make life hard for Paul Doolin's men.

While clearly prepared for each other, however, both sides failed in the first half to get to grips with the pitch, a dry and dusty affair on which the ball bobbled erratically.

The result was a terribly scrappy opening half in which possession was repeatedly exchanged in the middle third of the pitch and serious attempts on goal were few and far between.

Rovers' best of the first half was a Dave Magill shot that Stuart Byrne, playing at right back due to injuries, deflected over, while Eamon Zayed threw away Drogheda's best opportunity with a rushed attempt to turn Ollie Cahill's angled ball goalwards when there was ample time to do much better.

The former Bray Wanderers striker made amends 10 minutes into the second half, however, when he neatly turned and skipped between Robbie Clarke and Ian Ryan, worked his way in a few yards more from the right and played a low ball for Shane Robinson's whose rather poor close-range finish squeezed in under the body of Barry Murphy.

It was difficult to judge whether the home support's howls of despair were aimed at a former favourite or the current players central to such a soft concession and things were no clearer five minutes later after Robinson doubled Drogheda's lead.

This time the winger's strike had the look of a well-rehearsed set-piece about it, Stephen Bradley sending a low free-kick in from the right and Robinson stepped back out of the six-yard box to take possession unchallenged and hit a perfectly placed shot to inside the right-hand post.

Having lost some of their most creative influence from midfield when Danny O'Connor limped off just before the first goal it was hard to see how Rovers were going to engineer a fightback but they were given hope when Glen Fitzpatrick performed a two-handed shove on Barry Ferguson after a verbal altercation and was shown a straight red card.

O'Connor's replacement, Dave Cassidy, then halved the deficit eight minutes from time with a fiercely-struck volley that hit Mikko Vilmunen in the chest, bounced and then spun in as the goalkeeper fell to the ground.

Ferguson was one of three Rovers players to then go close to grabbing an equaliser and somebody certainly should have turned Clarke's cross home in the dying seconds, but nobody did and so Drogheda United go clear at the top of the table, at least until this evening.

SHAMROCK ROVERS: Murphy; O'Brien, Ferguson, Ryan, Clarke; Pender, O'Connor (Cassidy, 53 mins), Barrett, Magill (Myler, 60 mins); Purcell (Duffy, 73 mins), Rowe.

DROGHEDA UNITED: Vilmunen; Byrne, Shelley, Gray, Webb; Robinson, Keegan, Bradley, Cahill; Zayed, Fitzpatrick.

Referee: A Buttimer (Cork).