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<\/p>\nShamrock Rovers opened a six-point gap at the top of the League of Ireland men’s Premier Division table with just seven league games to be played, after a scoreless draw with Shelbourne in front of a crowd of 7251 at Tallaght Stadium.<\/p>\n
Rovers have stuttered of late, going out of the FAI Cup and Europe and they had to dig deep to get something off a Shels side that were difficult to break down<\/p>\n
The visitors defended well in numbers, relying on breakaway attacks to frustrate Stephen Bradley’s side.<\/p>\n
Indeed, it was Shelbourne who created the better opportunities and John Russell\u2019s side could well have taken all three points had keeper Ed McGinlty not brilliantly saved Odhran Casey\u2019s 65th minute header which had goal written all over it.<\/p>\n
Before the game Rovers fans unveiled a banner in honour of the retired Rory Gaffney while former player and manager Liam Buckley was also honoured for his services to the club<\/p>\n
Both sides made changes from their most recent league games with Rovers captain Roberto Lopes back from suspension while he was partnered in a three-man defence by Lee Grace and former Irish international Enda Stevens who was an unused sub last week in Derry.<\/p>\n
Shels continued without Paddy Barrett, who is still omitted from the squad, while Rodrigo Freitas was back after a ban having missed the draw in Galway, in to replace Sean Boyd who was benched.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rovers applied the early pressure and came mighty close to opening the scoring in the 7th minute as John Henry Francis was disposed in midfield allowing Graham Burke time to surge into the Shels area, but Michael Noonan just couldn\u2019t supply the finish to Burke’s fine cross.<\/p>\n
However, the game got bogged down after that initial Rovers burst as Shels sat very deep, relying on the break. It very nearly paid off at the midway point of the opening half as Daniel Kelly clipped a ball over the advancing McGinty, only to see the it narrowly miss the far post of the now empty net.<\/p>\n
Shels, who only had one win in their last seven outings, were now well in the game with Evan Caffery and Kerr McInroy both going close to opening the scoring not long after Kelly\u2019s effort.<\/p>\n
Shelbourne made two changes at the break where the match had remained scoreless, bringing on Milan Mbeng for the ineffective Sean Gannon, while Ali Coote replaced JJ Lunny who has walking a tightrope having been booked in the opening period.<\/p>\n
And within minutes of coming on Coote found Kelly in the area, and his goal bound shot was defected to safety off the boot of a Rovers defender.<\/p>\n
But the game settled back into its first half pattern, Shels deep, Rovers unable to break down a stubborn visitor defence.<\/p>\n
The Reds were then so unlucky not to go ahead as McInroy\u2019s corner was pushed onto the butt of the post by McGinty, who saved brilliantly in the 65th minute from the header by Casey.<\/p>\n
In truth the game petered out after that, both sides creating half chances and shots from distance which troubled neither keeper as Rovers’ defence of the league limps on with none of the chasing pack capable of closing the gap.<\/p>\n
Next week Rovers travel to Inchicore to take on St Pat’s in what could be the last chance saloon for Stephen Kenny\u2019s side in the title race.<\/p>\n
Shamrock Rovers: Ed McGinty; Lee Grace, Roberto Lopes, Enda Stevens; Tunmise Sobowale, Matt Healy, Jack Byrne (Will Fitzgerald 66) , Dylan Watts, Adam Brennan (John O\u2019Sullivan 75); Graham Burke (John McGovern 66), Michael Noonan (Jonathan Afolabi 66).<\/p>\n
Shelbourne: Eddie Beach; Se\u00e1n Gannon (Milan Mbeng 46), Odhran Casey, Kameron Ledwidge; John Henry Francis (Sean Moore 78), JJ Lunney (Ali Coote 46), Kerr McInroy, Evan Caffrey, James Norris Daniel Kelly, Rodrigo Freitas (Mipo Odubeko 64).<\/p>\n
Referee: Robert Harvey.<\/p>\n
Attendance: 7251.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shamrock Rovers opened a six-point gap at the top of the League of Ireland men’s Premier Division table…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-614722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614722","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=614722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}