And then the meltdown happened, a costly combination of bad luck and terrible application that ensured Joey O\u2019Brien\u2019s side left North Macedonia with nothing.<\/p>\n
First, Shels were reduced to ten men, when Sean Boyd sustained an injury from an attacking free kick that meant he was unable to continue. Shels had used all five of their subs.<\/p>\n
But it got worse from there as, under absolutely no pressure, Milan Mbeng headed an overhit Shkendija cross behind for a stoppage time corner that gave them one last chance.<\/p>\n
In the scramble that followed, the League of Ireland side tuned out and a Ronaldo Webster shot across the goal was turned into his net by Paddy Barrett, a catastrophic series of events that means the odds are now stacked against Shelbourne extending their maiden adventure beyond Christmas.<\/p>\n
From the early exchanges, it was clear that Shelbourne were not entering the lion\u2019s den. Shkendija were around an hour\u2019s travel from home and the ethnic Albanian club were never going to draw neutral support from Skopje for an early evening kickoff.<\/p>\n
The use of the vast 33,000 capacity national stadium made the spare crowd seem even more scattered. In terms of atmosphere, it was closer to the summer trips to Windsor Park than the journeys to face Rijeka and Qarabag.<\/p>\n
Football wise, there were certain similarities too as it was apparent that if Shels kept the ball, space would open up.<\/p>\n
Their midfield quartet Kerr McInroy, JJ Lunney, Jack Henry-Francis and Harry Wood ensured ball retention and they were always looking to bring the wing backs Milan Mbeng and James Norris into proceedings.<\/p>\n
For all that Shelbourne were the better side in the first half, they didn\u2019t really create a meaningful chance; McInroy tripped over himself when presented with a good one from a Mipo Odubeko run and cut back. Skhendija had a little spell around the half hour where they forced two corners but while their Senegalese winger Fabrice Tamba offered a threat, there was no sustained pressure. Shels just had to be mindful that proceedings didn\u2019t become too stretched.<\/p>\n
Shkendija clearly weren\u2019t satisfied with how they were playing and a double sub at the break gave them a little bit of impetus. It helped that they were having it all too easy defensively and O\u2019Brien brought John Martin and Sean Boyd in to offer a physical presence that would change that. There was also an element of playing the conditions with the heavy pitch an obstacle to intricate build-up play.<\/p>\n
They made an instant impact, and the best chance fell to Martin who headed the ball off the post following a free kick. Shkendija did have an opportunity in response with Tamba losing his composure after being played into space but they weren’t persistently knocking on the door.<\/p>\n
With ten minutes remaining, O\u2019Brien played his final roll of the dice, springing Ali Coote and Evan Caffrey to give his central areas a different energy with Daniel Kelly already on the pitch as a replacement for Norris. They were changes made in the pursuit of the three points. From a position of relative authority, disaster loomed.<\/p>\n
Shkendija: Gaye, Trumci, Fetai, Cake, Webster; Zejnullaj (R Ramadani 45), Alhassan (Qaka 70); Tamba (Krstevski), Krasniqi (Ademi 88), Latifi (Spahiu 45); Ibraimi<\/p>\n
Shelbourne: Speel, Coyle, Barrett, Ledwidge; Mbeng, Lunney, McInroy (Coote 82), Norris (Kelly 74); Henry-Francis (Caffrey 82), Wood (Martin 60); Odubeko (Boyd 60)<\/p>\n
Referee: Stefan Ebner (Austria)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And then the meltdown happened, a costly combination of bad luck and terrible application that ensured Joey O\u2019Brien\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,898,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-100187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-latest-news-ticker","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}