St Patrick's Ath - 1 Shamrock Rovers - 2 Having debated long and hard pre-season over giving Shamrock Rovers another tenancy at Richmond Park, St Patrick's Athletic saw at first hand just how much at home Liam Buckley's side have made themselves.

While St Patrick's have now managed just one point from five games at the venue, Rovers made it three wins from four to maintain their unexpectedly good start to the season and move up to fourth place in the table.

These sides shared eight goals when they last met, and the excitement the game promised bubbled on the surface before exploding with two sublime strikes midway through the first half.

Rovers drew first blood with a stunning goal on 20 minutes after Trevor Molloy won a free-kick off Mark Casey. Keith O'Halloran's delivery was unconvincingly punched clear by Chris Adamson, Mark O'Brien controlled the ball beautifully on the edge of the area and the young midfielder found the top left corner of the net with a crisp volley for a glorious debut goal.

The response was admirable from Eamonn Collins's side, and they levelled within four minutes.

In a flowing move involving Keith Fahey and Keith Dunne, Aidan O'Keeffe arrived to meet Dunne's cross at the near post to plant a header inside the upright.

St Patrick's enjoyed their most dominant spell of the match early in the second have, but crucially failed to score and were duly punished on 57 minutes.

Shane Robinson got free down the right in a counter-attack to cross. Critical hesitation by St Patrick's captain Colm Foley was clinically punished by Molloy, who nicked the ball away to turn sharply and shoot past Adamson.

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Adamson; Casey (Quinn, 83 mins), Maguire, Foley, Quigley; Fahey, Ndo, Osam, Dunne (McPhee, 62 mins); Bird, O'Keeffe (Rose, 62 mins).

SHAMROCK ROVERS: Mooney; Croly, Gough, Palmer, Doyle; O'Halloran (Tracey, 88 mins), O'Brien (Deans, 93 mins), Caffrey; Rutherford, Molloy (Kelly, 90 mins), Robinson.

Referee: E Barr (Dublin).