Bohemians 3 Drogheda United 2If their lack of bite up front cost them dearly against 10-man Cork in United Park last week, the defensive frailties of Drogheda were cruelly exposed last night at Dalymount Park where Bohemians came from behind in seven frantic final minutes to move to within four points of Shelbourne on whom they have two games in hand.
Dominic Foley grabbed a dramatic winner when he headed home James Keddy's cross from the left five minutes into stoppage time, with Dan Connor and his defence still looking decidedly rattled after Fergal Harkin's close-range equaliser 90 seconds from the end of ordinary time.
The goals prompted pandemonium amongst the home side's supporters who must have thought they were on the way to a comfortable win after dominating the first half and taking the lead on 36 minutes through Foley.
Foley's goals continued the 29-year-old striker's transformation from demon to darling up at Dalymount. Scoring one goal in your first 20 odd games is not the way for a striker to win over the fans, but all that has been quickly forgotten in recent weeks.
Last night's first was a particularly fine example of his recently rediscovered capacity to find the net in difficult circumstances, with the Corkman unbalanced and under a good deal of pressure as Stephen Rice crossed from the right to find him at the near post. He still made a good contact with his head, though, to push the ball past Connor and into the bottom right corner of goal.
If the finish had been good so too was the start of the move, with Farrelly confidently dragging the ball out of the path of two United players and then switching play to the right flank with a perfectly weighted pass into the path of Rice.
It was the sort of thing that gave Bohemians an edge over their visitors for much of the night, although they still lived dangerously from time to time at the back. Just short of the half hour they were lucky to see Declan O'Brien flagged offside after breaking clear into the box when Keddy clearly appeared to have played him on.
There were a couple of other tight calls but Drogheda were still waiting to seriously test Matt Gregg as the game moved into its last half an hour. Then, in a 90-second spell of mayhem for the home side's defence, United scored twice, with O'Brien, who hadn't found the net since getting two at Bray in early April, claiming both.
About the second there were no doubts with the 26-year-old finishing extremely coolly as Gregg sought to close him down, but the first had the look of an own goal as Rice sought to hook the ball clear from inside his six-yard box and under-21 international Seán Cooney, playing just his second game for the Dublin club, seemed to deflect the ball into the net.
With Kevin Hunt having just limped out of the game the home side faced a difficult task to salvage something from the game.
John Paul Kelly joined Farrelly in central midfield and Aidan O'Keeffe came on to make his debut up front but if they were going to bounce back from the double blow it seemed certain the player-manager and the big striker were going to be at the heart of things.
So it proved with Farrelly again starting the move for his side's second goal before Stephen Ward's cross allowed Foley to force Connor to parry his save into the path of Harkin.
The striker provided the required finish for the winner himself to leave Drogheda's players wondering quite how they had they lost and Bohemians celebrating another win in a what is now a run of 11 with just one defeat.
BOHEMIANS: Gregg; Rice, Oman, Cooney, Keddy; Harkin, Hunt (Kelly, 63 mins), Farrelly, Ward; Foley, Grant (O'Keeffe, 78 mins).
DROGHEDA UNITED: Connor; Lynch, Malcolm, Gartland, Webb; Reilly (Tyrrell, 50 mins), Whelan, Bradley (Rooney, 61 mins), Sandvliet (Gray, 93 mins); O'Brien, Ristila.
Referee: A Buttimer (Cork).
