Shamrock Rovers 7 Bray Wanderers 0: Shamrock Rovers finally earned their second league success of the year when overcoming Bray Wanderers at Tallaght Stadium. After six successive draws, a dearth of goals had been central to the Rovers' stuttering campaign with manager Trevor Croly hopeful for an improvement in attacking play.
Rovers opened the scoring after six minutes through Danny Ledwith, who fired home from 14 yards after Bray had failed to deal with a Seán O’Connor cross. That lead was almost doubled in the 12th minute as Pat Sullivan saw his cross-shot roll across goal. A minute later Darren Quigley was at full stretch in turning Ciarán Kilduff’s header away.
It was no surprise when Rover doubled their lead in the 37th minute with Kilduff making the most of Ronan Finn’s through ball to brush off two challenges before sliding the ball home from 10 yards.
Matters deteriorated for the visitors in first-half injury-time as a glorious move involving Ledwith and O’Connor allowed Finn to race unopposed into the area with a calm finish beyond Quigley the deserved outcome.
Despite a better showing after the break, Bray fell further behind in the 65th minute as a sublime cross from Ledwith found Quigley, who nodded home from six yards. It became a procession in the final quarter with James Chambers adding a brace of quality goals to add to a late Finn penalty.
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Murphy; Sullivan (Rice, 77), Foran, Oman, Powell; O'Connor, Chambers, Finn, Ledwith (Dennehy, 71); Quigley, Kilduff (Sheppard, 85).
BRAY WANDERERS: Quigley; Doyle (Moffatt, 83), Webster, Thomas, Knight (O'Neill, 54); Waters, Dempsey, Mulroy, Sambra, Earley; Byrne (Akinade, 84).
Referee: Paul McLoughlin (Dublin).
