St Patrick’s Athletic 1 Bohemians 1

There are times when the number of Dublin derbies in this league might drive a neutral to despair but there could be few enough complaints if they were all like this, a match that was high on energy and action but with barely a hint of malice over the course of the 90 minutes.

It was certainly short on dull moments. Open throughout, the game gradually picked up pace until it threatened to merge into one, long goalmouth scramble towards the end. By then, St Patrick’s Athletic were, much to the frustration of their fans, desperately chasing a winner.

This, after leading from the 30th minute when Anto Flood capitalised coolly on a Dean Delany mistake to head home from close range, only to concede an equaliser to Dave Mulcahy, also from a corner.

Conan Byrne, Jake Kelly and Christy Fagan were amongst the players who might have grabbed them the goal required to take the precious extra two points but Bohemians held out with just as much determination and, though they clearly rode their luck at times, they’ll feel to made some for themselves as well.

Much of what went on around the two sides’ areas, though, might best be described as chaotic with persistently poor defending almost matched for magnitude by the generally hapless inability of those who presented with chances to actually put them away.

A defensive coach might have been reduced to watching through fingers but for the 1,400 or so who had paid in it certainly made for entertaining stuff with almost every move forward coming close, it seemed, to yielding a goal.

The home side, as would have been expected, generated the lion’s share of them but it was far from being a monopoly with Bohemians having a good spell, in particular, in the lead up to their equaliser.

The goal, however, had an immediate effect on the hosts for whom dropping points this time was rather less forgivable than it had seemed against Derry on Friday night. Delany got to make amends with a couple of saves late on and Roberto Lopes made a vital goal line clearance at one point but really Kelly and Fagan's best chances to secure the victory were the sort that shouldn't have been wasted with the former blasting over from a few yards out after good work by Chris Forrester and the latter firing straight at Delaney when there looked to be an awful lot of goal to aim at.

St Patrick's Athletic: Clarke; O'Brien, Browne, Kenna, Bermingham; McFaul; Byrne, Gannon (Kelly, 60 mins), Russell, Forrester; Flood (Fagan, 65 mins).
Bohemians: Delany; Lopes, Mulcahy, Byrne; Barker, Buckley, O'Brien (Devaney, half-time), McEvoy, Mulligan; Lyons, Wilson (Fitzpatrick, 73 mins).
Referee: P McLaughlin (Monaghan).