Football News

SSE Airtricity Premier Division: Shelbourne FC 1 St. Patrick’s Athletic 0 

Table topping Shelbourne earned their first win in five overcoming St. Patrick's Athletic with a battling performance.

John Martin’s first half strike ensured all three points, and the bragging rights, stayed on the Northside as a crowd of 4,755 watched keenly on at Tolka Park.

With the state of the pitch being the topic of conversation in recent weeks, both sets of players went about their business as best they could despite the conditions underfoot.

As expected it was the determined home side that came flying out of the traps early on.

Former Shamrock Rovers man, Sean Gannon did wonderfully down the right before cleverly cutting back to the penalty spot but saw both John Martin and JJ Lunney have air shots. Tyreke Wilson picked up the loose ball before eventually shooting straight at Danny Rogers in the first huge moment of the game.

But the injury hit visitors, knowing that an away win would put themselves within four points of their opposition at the summit, started to impose themselves with the talismanic Chris Forrester beginning to get on the ball.

The Reds did well to swing the momentum back in their favour. After a couple of warnings from Will Jarvis and JJ Lunney - on his 100th appearance - forcing Rogers into sharp saves, the home side deservedly took the lead just after the half hour mark when John Martin swept home Matty Smith's square ball from the right.

Jake Mulraney was desperately unlucky to see his 25-yard free kick tipped around the post by Conor Kearns just before the break serving as a warning that the Athletic weren’t going down without a fight.

Mulraney was at it again just after the break as the game ebbed and flowed

Shamrock Rovers Chris Forrester