Emmet Malone On Soccer: Towards the end of last season there were those at Shelbourne who liked to point out that the club's record over the last two rounds of games in the league campaign was better than that of Bohemians.

The claim was that they didn't get the credit they deserved for the achievement, although it was quite difficult to see why anybody would get all that excited about it given that their run of four defeats and two draws in the opening round of nine matches had been so clearly responsible for handing the championship initiative to Bohemians.

This time around, it seems, the boot is on the other foot and it is the defending champions who have found it hard to find their form early on. The question already is whether Pat Fenlon's men can produce the sort of consistency required now to set the championship pace over the months ahead and put their northside rivals under a very different sort of pressure to the type they endured during January's run-in.

With the first round of games completed, Shelbourne's lead over St Patrick's Athletic and the rest of the pack is only five points, but during the weeks ahead they look to have a good opportunity to build on it.

Waterford travel to Tolka Park tomorrow night fresh from their 4-1 defeat in Derry. Fenlon's men then face Derry themselves, followed by Longford and Drogheda. At anything approaching their best they are capable of winning all four games.

So far they have struggled slightly to settle into their game, a fact Stuart Byrne - speaking over the weekend on RTÉ radio - attributed in part to the players' initial problems with adapting to the different demands of the summer season.

What has stood to them so far, though, has been their ability to squeeze results out of even the games that haven't gone so well for them, and the resilience they showed to come from behind so late on against Bohemians was evidence of increased self-belief.

Jason Byrne's goals early on provided the basis for a strong start, and though his form has dipped slightly even before Friday's needless dismissal it seems clear that the difference between the form of the two clubs' most prominent strikers goes much of the way to explaining the early-season six-point gap between Shelbourne and Bohemians in the table.

Glen Crowe kicked off fairly well for the champions, but in recent weeks he has looked short of his best, with Paul Keegan always looking the more likely of the pair to score against Drogheda last Friday week.

Despite his immense overall contribution, however, Keegan doesn't score nearly as many as you would expect from a man in his position. That's not a particular problem when Crowe is firing on all cylinders, but with the Ireland international having only chipped in two it does start to look a bit of an issue for Stephen Kenny.

After Friday's defeat by St Patrick's he made it clear that he believed missed chances had been what had cost his team the points. It wasn't the first time, but then other factors have contributed to the club's problems, with errors by key players in other areas - Shay Kelly and Damian Lynch among them - and a general inability to recapture the passing fluency displayed with such regularity last season leaving them playing catch-up on this occasion.

It's hard to imagine them failing to recover their stride eventually, but there is obviously some urgency to the matter, for if they fail to beat St Patrick's, Shamrock Rovers, Cork or Shelbourne in the second round of games, as they did in the first, then they will have the proverbial mountain to climb.

Even if the improvement comes sooner rather than later, it remains to be seen whether we end up with the two-horse race so many people had expected a few weeks ago or a more interesting contest also involving one of the other big Dublin clubs, both of whom have started fairly well, Cork City or perhaps a gatecrasher.

Right now Waterford are filling that gatecrasher role rather well, but the rate at which they concede goals raises the suspicion that as the campaign trundles on their priorities will still be all about consolidation rather than making any spectacular breakthrough at this early stage of their top-flight career.

But then try telling that to Jimmy McGeough as he heads for Tolka Park tomorrow night.