Dundalk 0 Bohemians 2With upsets of any note having almost gone out of fashion in this Carlsberg FAI Cup, Dundalk went the way of the underdog last night at Oriel Park where a display, brimming bravery and passion in front of a large local crowd, ended up counting for little against the greater fire-power brought to town by Bohemians.

For the bulk of an open and entertaining game the home side held out well despite a good deal of pressure from the league champions and had they taken their own chances they might even have compounded Stephen Kenny's already considerable fixture problems by taking the tie back to Dalymount.

Ultimately, though, the visiting side's quality told and Robbie Doyle saw his side safely into the last 16 with two second-half goals that leave Trevor Anderson's side with little to look forward to during the months ahead bar a desperate dog-fight for one of the promotion play-off spots.

To date that part of their season has been going poorly but if they just play like this consistently in the first division they would surely be all right.

Kenny, of course, has somewhat loftier things to occupy him these days and with the Champions League qualifier against Rosenborg on Wednesday looming large he opted to make widespread changes to the side that beat BATE last week.

Five new faces were drafted in, including Paul Keegan and Andrei Pereplyotkin up front, but there was little difference in terms of the approach with the visitors basing their usual attacking game on their traditional strength in central midfield and their willingness to push on strongly down the flanks.

The result was much the same as it had been in last week's impressive European win too with the Dubliners enjoying a good deal of possession out of which they created a good many chances.

Unlike the Belarussians, though, Dundalk failed to crumble under the pressure at the back and their visitors were made to hunt patiently for a breakthrough.

With just three league wins in 30 first division games since Anderson took charge at Oriel Park, Dundalk needed to pull something fairly dramatic out of the bag if they were going to beat the league champions and take a place in the third round of the competition.

Getting goals has been a particular problem for the Louth side but at the back they are very tight these days and their ability last night to mass plenty of bodies behind the ball whenever Bohemians seemed to threaten made things very hard for the Bohemians front two and the various members of their supporting cast.

There were various half chances for the visitors but with Paul Curran and Stewart McClean impressive around their area, Neal Gallagher was well protected through the opening hour and the young goalkeeper didn't have anything too extravagant to do.

Shay Kelly, on the other hand, had twice done very well to keep the sides level early in the first half with the former UCD man touching a close range Chris Lawless header just over moments after getting an even better touch to a long range Garry Haylock shot.

The striker had been brought back in to add some finesse to the home side's forward line and he did almost everything that could have asked of him. While he repeatedly caused the visiting defence problems he couldn't quite beat the in-form Kelly.

In the second half, too, he drew a fine stop from the goalkeeper before narrowly missing the target with a fierce strike from a long way out. By then, however, Kenny had decided to call in his own big guns.

Neither Pereplyotkin or Keegan appeared to take his decision to replace them with Glen Crowe and Doyle well with the Ukrainian, in particular, seeming to avoid his manager as he made directly for the dressing-room.

The manager's instincts were quickly proved right within a couple of minutes, however, as Crowe, along with Davie Morrison and Stephen Caffrey played a key part in the build-up to the game's opening goal which finally arrived when Gallagher saved from the Ireland international only for Doyle to tap home the follow up.

As the match moved into injury-time Doyle added his second, the striker this time driving low towards the left hand corner after Fergal Harkin's corner had been helped on by Jason McGuinness.

This time the 17-year-old Gallagher got a firm touch but just couldn't keep the ball out.

"I'm proud of them all," said Anderson after seeing his team finally beaten. "They proved they are good team out there tonight and I'm very happy with the performance.

"It's back to the bread and butter of the league and the hope is that we can take something out of tonight that will help us get back into the frame for promotion," he added.

DUNDALK: Gallagher; McCartney, McClean, Curran, Sean Kelly; Simon Kelly, Sliney, Kavanagh, Lawless (Riley, 73 mins); Ward, Haylock.

BOHEMIANS: Kelly; Lynch, McGuinness, Heary, Webb; Harkin, Caffrey, Hunt (Oman, 90 mins), Morrison; Pereplyotkin (Doyle, 63 mins), Keegan (Crowe, 63 mins).

Referee: I Stokes (Dublin).