SOCCER/St Patrick's Athletic 0 Bohemians 1:The rivalry here may not be on the scale of that between the visitors and Shamrock Rovers, but the home support's obvious dissatisfaction last night at this latest failure to beat Bohemians this season was nevertheless another reason for managerial discomfort around Richmond Park.
The last time the sides met, Seán Connor's men extended the Southsiders' cupless run by at least one more season. Here they dealt another serious blow to the one time league leaders' fading hopes of taking second place and the various prizes that go with it.
Just as 10 days ago, Darren Mansaram was the one to score for Bohemians. His strike was hardly a thing of beauty but again he showed composure after being lucky to control Stephen O'Donnell's ball down the left.
John McDonnell's recall of the goal this morning, however, is more likely to focus on how the striker found himself with time to take a string of touches before gently pushing his low shot past the helpless Barry Ryan.
McDonnell made three changes, Connor five, to the sides that lined out in the cup, with Joseph Ndo, Stephen Paisley and Alan Paisley all injured or dropped. Mark Quigley kept his place but can't have been happy about starting on the left side of midfield as Glen Fitzpatrick partnered Gary O'Neill up front.
With Neale Fenn and Glen Crowe sidelined, Bohemians started Michael McGinley alongside Mansaram who, the goal aside, provided glimpses of the talent Connor talks up.
The big striker showed good balance and control as he took on and beat opponents in the first half. Shortly before the break he revealed an eye for a long pass too, releasing his strike partner with a cleverly lofted ball into space that left the Inchicore outfit's centre-halves scrambling to make up ground until the linesman let them off the hook.
The rawness of the pairing was exposed just before the interval, though, when McGinley's close-range shot forced a good save from Ryan after a mistake by Dave Rogers. The ball fell kindly for the Bohemians player, who had Mansaram free to his right but the pass was overhit and once again the local supporters were left to breath a sigh of relief.
They had one or two things to get excited about at the other end as well. Brian Murphy produced the save of the first half 16 minutes in after John Frost had picked out Anto Murphy with a decent cross and the right back's header appeared netbound.
For the most part, though, it was modest fare, neither side looking capable of really imposing themselves.
After the cup game McDonnell had talked about how his side had been caught by Bohemians' physical approach early on, but honours were even on that score this time in a contest that had a niggling rather than nasty aspect to it but still managed to yield a succession of yellow cards.
The referee's biggest call of the night, though, came 16 minutes from time when St Patrick's broke quickly out defence thanks to a fine flick-on by Ryan Guy for Quigley.
The striker may have delayed a moment too long as he approached the area but when he did reach it his legs were clearly taken by Conor Powell. But the referee felt the defender had taken the ball and, to Quigley's dismay, waved play on.
St Patrick's stepped up their pursuit of an equaliser and generated a handful of good scoring opportunities in the run-up to the final whistle.
The best came from Keith Fahey, from a free, Darragh Maguire and Mark Quigley but Murphy reacted brilliant on all three occasions to maintain his side's grip on the three points.
ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Ryan; Murphy (Kirby, 76 mins), Brennan, Rogers, Frost; Fahey, Keane, Gibson (Maguire, 70 mins), M Quigley; O'Neill, Fitzpatrick (Guy, 58 mins).
BOHEMIANS: Murphy (Kirby, 78 mins); O Heary, McGuinness, Burns, Powell; Turner, Hunt (McCann, 59 (Rossiter, 93 mins)mins), O'Donnell, Richardson (Kelly, 66 mins); Mansaram, McGinley.
Referee: D Hancock (Dublin).
