St Patrick's Athletic 3
Bohemians 1

Two poacher's goals from Christy Fagan and a fine solo strike from Chris Forrester delivered a hat-trick of of league wins for St Patrick's to move them up to third place in the table after they came from behind to utterly outplay Bohemians at Richmond Park.

With President Michael D Higgins once again an interested spectator at Inchicore, St Patrick’s started brightly, enjoying much of the early possession.

Despite owning much of the ball, though, the champions struggled to trouble Lee Murphy in the Bohemians goal in those opening exchanges with a dipping volley from Forrester off target on eight minutes.

Having soaked up the early pressure, Bohemians struck for a shock lead goal on the counterattack on 22 minutes.

Craig Walsh’s diagonal ball caught out the flat St Patrick’s rearguard to pick out the run of Jason Byrne. And the veteran striker did the rest, calmly chipping to the net off his weaker left foot with home goalkeeper Brendan Clarke a mere spectator.

It was a third league goal of the season for the 36-year-old to bring him onto 210 for his career in total. But it was a short-lived lead as St Patrick’s sprung back to level within five minutes.

Keith Fahey swept a precise ball wide right to Conan Byrne. Bohemians central defender Aidan Price succeeded in merely slicing an attempted clearance straight to Fagan who spun to shoot low to the far corner of the net.

Galvanised by their equaliser, St Patrick’s utterly dominated until the interval with Byrne having a shot deflected into the side-netting to begin a glut of corners to the home side.

In between, Fagan brought a terrific save from Murphy with a goal-bound header from Fahey’s free-kick on 37 minutes as James Chambers and Fagan, again, had efforts on goal as Bohemians hung on for the half-time whistle.

Service resumed on the restart with Bohemians forced to defend in numbers with Murphy overworked behind them.

Long-range
Ian Bermingham got forward from left-back to be the first to bring the Bohemians goalkeeper into action again with a long-range half volley two minutes in.

Fagan then cut in from the left to rifle a shot from 20 yards which Murphy did well to touch onto a post.

The pressure was unrelenting and Forrester should have put St Patrick’s ahead on 63 minutes but he somehow shot over the bar with the goal gaping from Byrne’s by-line pull-back.

A minute later, St Patrick’s got the reward their sheer dominance deserved.

Fagan put Byrne in behind Darragh Reynor on the right. And when the cross wasn’t cut out, Fagan was in on the loose ball to blast it to the net with his left foot from close range.

Forrester then atoned for his earlier miss with a wonderful third goal on 77 minutes. Showing delightful feet to jink past several defenders before driving his shot to the net.

Bohemians were within inches of getting a goal back on 85 minutes when Roberto Lopes saw his header from a Reynor corner come back off the home crossbar.

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Clarke; O'Brien (McCormack, 81), Hoare, Browne, Bermingham; Fahey; Byrne, Chambers (Verdon, 89), Lynch, Forrester; Fagan (Kavanagh, 87).
BOHEMIANS: Murphy; Pender, Lopes, Price, Reynor; Mulcahy; Buckley (Kavanagh, 77), McEvoy, Walsh (Beattie, 61), Mulligan (Moore, h/t); Byrne.
Referee: Graham Kelly (Cork).