The game might have been a little disappointing, the result a blow to the title ambitions of Dermot Keely's men but a couple of memorable goals, the first scored by Sean Hargan, the second by Owen Heary were more than enough to make the trip to Tolka Park worthwhile last night.
Despite the fact that both sides moved the ball around well enough and the game was always played at a lively enough pace, neither team seemed capable of creating much in front of goal.
While Derry's backs rode their luck in defence from time to time, Shelbourne's had precious little to do prior to Liam Coyle's second half arrival. Even so, it did take some quick thinking from visiting supporters' favourite Peter Hutton to save his goalkeeper's blushes just a quarter of an hour in when Steve Williams entirely missed his attempted clearance and the defender spotted the danger before Jamie Hughes cottoned on to the opportunity.
That was more or less it from the northerners until Hargan's spectacular second-half goal, although, given the rather sporadic success of their goalscorer's attempts to mark Stephen Geoghegan out of the proceedings, it shouldn't have been an end to the excitement around goal. In fact, Shelbourne had enough of the ball around the City box to wrap the game up well before the break but the final pass always seemed to be poor and so it took an opportunist long-distance strike in the 45th minute from Davy Byrne to force Russell Payne into his only notable save of the period.
When his moment came, Payne reacted well to make the stop although at least he had the chance.
When Hargan unleashed the ball from 35 yards just three minutes after the break, it's hard to know whether he was aiming for the target but Williams certainly wasn't expecting the shot and so he stood little chance in preventing the ball from sailing past him and into the top right corner.
Another night it would have worth three points by itself, but this time out Heary's was certainly good enough to warrant the spoils being shared.
Richie Baker had initially looked to get behind the Derry defence 19 minutes from time but it was after he lost possession that Tony McCarthy and Heary linked up down the right to produce a couple of quick interchanges that finished with the full back flicking the ball past a bewildered Payne with the heel of his boot.
SHELBOURNE: Williams; Heary, Hutton, McCarthy, Minnock; Gannon, Byrne, Fenlon; D Baker, Geoghegan, R Baker (Houlihan, 71 mins).
DERRY CITY: Payne; Kelly, Hargan, E McCallion; Doherty, McLaughlin, T McCallion, Beckett, Phillips; Hughes (Coyle, 61), Moran (Parkhouse, 80 mins).
Referee: D O'Hanlon (Waterford).
