AIRTRICITY LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION Bray Wanderers 2 Shamrock Rovers 2:THE FACT they beat the champions twice last year might go some way to explaining the confident way in which Bray set about their visitors at the Carlisle Grounds last night and the coolness with which Kieran "Marty" Waters put away their best two chances of the first half.

What was harder to fathom through the opening 40 minutes was how Stephen Kenny’s Rovers side took so long to find their feet and, more pointedly, the second goals scored by Ronan Finn and Gary Twigg that salvaged a point for them in the end.

The scale of the drama was unexpected especially through the opening stages when Rovers appeared as though they were going to produce the desired “Friday night reaction” but their early pressure didn’t come to anything really and as things settled Bray quickly rose to the occasion.

Their 4-1-4-1 was recently abandoned by Bohemians because of the way it left the club’s young strikers stranded but throwing Jason Byrne up front by himself is a somewhat different matter and here the veteran held the ball up well and brought others into play while, it always seemed, waiting for the right moment to test Oscar Jansson with a shot from distance.

Instead, it was left-sided winger Waters who had the home side’s first crack at goal that flew into the side-netting and it soon became apparent that the 21-year-old was going to be a thorn in the side of right-back Conor McCormack.

The Rovers player was fortunate not to concede a penalty 12 minutes in when he scooped the ball away from Waters as the pair tangled a yard inside the area.

Four minutes later, though, he wasn’t so lucky as Wanderers swept forward, Dane Massey fed Byrne who laid the ball back into his path and the midfielder then found Waters with a pass that the winger wasted no time in making the most off.

Jansson may well have been a little disappointed to be beaten by a shot that flew across him and into the bottom right corner but there was little he could have done about the home side’s second which Byrne and Dean Zambra both had a hand in before Waters again got beyond McCormack then cut inside Craig Sives and powered the ball in off the underside of the bar.

The strike brought the number of goals Rovers had conceded in their last four games to 10 and left them facing their third defeat of the run. There was 53 minutes to turn the night around but improvement was required in just about every department, especially midfield.

There was some encouragement for the travelling support a minute or so before the break when Gary O’Neill forced a decent stop from Darren Quigley but he should have scored as should Massey at the other end a second later following a break down the right and cross by Adam Hanlon.

Still, Kenny’s side looked like a side that had woken up to the fact they might lose and when Twigg went to chase down a long ball forward moments later Pierce Sweeney was reckoned to have nudged the striker with his arm and Paul McLaughlin pointed to the spot. Twigg put away his first attempt at taking the penalty but the referee was already on the way to the Bray dug-out to order Keith Long out of it. His second, struck low to the right again, was saved fairly easily and though Billy Dennehy put away the follow-up he was ruled to have moved into the area too quickly and Wanderers were awarded a free out.

The strong sense of injustice amongst Rovers fans who wrongly thought the penalty should have been retaken was misplaced but things started to improve for them not long after the break. Finally, their side started to really get on top and Quigley, having been booked for wasting time, along with his defence, started to feel the pressure. It wasn’t until the introduction of Daryl Kavanagh for O’Neill that their approach work started to open up their opponents, however, and the substitute set up both of his side’s goals, the first after 68 minutes for Finn, the second for Twigg after 83.

Some of Bray’s defending in what remained after the equaliser had a hint of desperation about it but Waters still came close to completing his hat-trick. Bray held on in the end to take a point that, for their early efforts, they deserved.

BRAY WANDERERS: Quigley; Webster, O'Connor, Sweeney, Knight (Mitchell, 83 mins); Zambra; Hanlon, Massey, Mulroy, Waters; Byrne (Doyle, 86 mins).

SHAMROCK ROVERS: Jansson; McCormack, Sieves, Oman, Powell (Greene, 79 mins); Finn, Turner; McCabe, O'Neill (Kavanagh, 64 mins), Dennehy; Twigg.

Referee: P McLaughlin(Monaghan).