Aaron Bolger brilliance halts St Pat\u2019s<\/p>\n
For an hour on Friday night, it looked as though the main takeaway from Eamonn Deacy Park would be a timely reminder of the class of Chris Forrester in the St Patrick\u2019s Athletic<\/a> midfield. <\/p>\n Less involved than usual this season, the returning Forrester was a cut above in Galway<\/a>, dictating play effectively while interspersing familiar flashes of brilliance. That was the size of his role for the opener, advancing the ball with a stylish dummy in midfield, toying with it on the edge of the box before ultimately laying off sensibly to Zack Elbouzedi, who found Ryan Edmondson\u2019s diving head at the far post. <\/p>\n Ten minutes into the second half, Forrester added a goal of his own, arriving on to an Elbouzedi pullback just inside the area and meeting it casually on the volley. <\/p>\n In among the vigour and energy of the willing young runners in Saints\u2019 line-up, the 33-year-old can play a greater role as the season goes on. It is doubtful, 15 years on from his debut at this level, that anyone in the League of Ireland has a quicker football brain. <\/p>\n While Forrester\u2019s guile seemed to have settled the game for Pat\u2019s, he was ultimately outdone by the persistence and power of his opposite number in maroon. Those descriptors do not capture the full range of Aaron Bolger\u2019s performance, whose two second-half goals for Galway United relied upon outstanding technique. <\/p>\n The first in particular, cutting across a loose ball with a sweet volley of his own, was of the highest quality. Bolger\u2019s second, a low drive from the edge of the box, came in the dying moments of the game, reversing Galway\u2019s unhelpful trend of conceding late on in games this season and earning his side a deserved point. <\/p>\n It means St Pat\u2019s fall to second in the table, though they can take positives from the game. Edmondson\u2019s seventh goal of the season stands out as an obvious one, underlining the fine job he is doing replacing Mason Melia\u2019s goals. <\/p>\n Two up top not the answer for Bohemians <\/p>\n For a team struggling to score goals, shuffling your system to incorporate two strikers might seem like a decent idea. <\/p>\n Unfortunately for Bohemians<\/a>, a linear tactical solution was found wanting, with the game bypassing the duo of Douglas James-Taylor and Colm Whelan in the first half as Derry City<\/a>\u2019s system, conversely packed with midfield players, enjoyed a comfortable opening 45 minutes. They led thanks to one of those midfielders, James Olayinka, at the break. <\/p>\n Ross Tierney had been sacrificed to accommodate the Bohs attack, and his half-time introduction for James-Taylor was an admission of error by Alan Reynolds. The old system fared better, and it helped that Tierney seemed to take his omission personally, looking the best player on the pitch in the second half. <\/p>\n Markus Strods netted an equaliser for the home side, and though they wound up with a man advantage late on, the game ended 1-1. It means Bohs are now eight games without a win, and perhaps just as worryingly, they have now failed to score more than one goal in each of their last 10 games.<\/p>\n Tiernan Lynch will view Monday\u2019s game at home to Galway United as an opportunity to carve out a positive bank holiday weekend for Derry, with Michael Duffy potentially ready for more minutes following his return from injury on Friday.<\/p>\n Set pieces offer much-needed reprieve for Shelbourne<\/p>\n Shelbourne<\/a> ended a run of four consecutive losses and inflicted a first home defeat of the season on Dundalk<\/a> in a 2-1 victory at Oriel Park on Friday to ease pressure on manager Joey O\u2019Brien. <\/p>\n A late penalty from Daryl Horgan introduced some tension, particularly given Shels\u2019 collapse from a similar position of strength against Drogheda<\/a> last week, but outside of that moment, it was a professional performance from the away side and they were good value for the three points. <\/p>\n Shelbourne\u2019s win was owed to set pieces \u2013 a part of the game that has damaged them for much of the season. Daniel Kelly\u2019s opening goal came from a clever corner kick routine, while their second, a nice finish from Kerr McInroy, was the product of a deep free kick launched towards the Dundalk penalty area. <\/p>\n \u201cSet plays are a massive part of the game,\u201d O\u2019Brien said after the game. \u201cWe\u2019ve conceded a lot this year from set plays. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve actually conceded many goals from open play and it\u2019s something that the lads are aware of. We do a lot of work on them here \u2013 sometimes you wouldn\u2019t think that [with the way] we defend them.\u201d <\/p>\n Shamrock Rovers edge back to the top <\/p>\n A battling Waterford<\/a> side pushed Shamrock Rovers<\/a> closer than anticipated, but the Hoops\u2019 1-0 victory on Friday edges them quietly back to the top of the league table. <\/p>\n Graham Burke\u2019s first-half goal was the difference, and though there were bright moments from the likes of Adam Brennan, Michael Noonan and Victor Ozhianvuna, it was Waterford pushing for an equaliser late on and testing Rovers goalkeepers Ed McGinty.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for the Blues, positive takeaways do little to distract from a dismal points total. They sit nine adrift of ninth place Sligo Rovers, who suffered defeat themselves against Drogheda United on Friday night thanks to a first-half goal from Mark Doyle. <\/p>\n The league tends to be split into two packs, with potential for a runaway winner or loser at either end, as the season develops. Waterford will want to ensure they stay on the coattails of those above them, and a home game against Dundalk on Monday might well be an opportunity for their first win of the campaign. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Bolger brilliance halts St Pat\u2019s For an hour on Friday night, it looked as though the main…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3407,23531,61,60,2539,43,11113,25201],"class_list":["post-428364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-bohemians","tag-damien-duff","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-league-of-ireland","tag-news","tag-shamrock-rovers","tag-shelbourne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428364","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=428364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}