Shelbourne 0-0 Shamrock Rovers @Tolka Park (22/4/24)

A goalless draw in Tolka Park secures both teams a point each, and both teams going home longing for more out of their upcoming Friday fixtures.

The one point result means that we remain top of the league by 3 points, but still winless in our last 5 games. A good return after a miserable 1-0 loss to Galway. In fairness to the team, it was a good performance, and considering the pitch was practically the Sahara Desert with all the sand kicking up, both teams did very well.

Let’s talk about the first half:

I thought we started very well. We were on the attack straight away, but so we’re the Hoops. From around the second minute up to the fourth Rovers had 3 successive corners, but were not able to convert off of any, nearly scoring in the first with a header from Lopes but it hit the woodwork.

I’m the 7th minute a very well ball by Smith was passed into the box which got to Paddy Barret, and he hit it first time but Pöhls got to it and knocked it out for a corner. The corner didn’t cause much but the ball went back out left after a scrap for the ball in the middle, which Kam Ledwidge got onto, but was easily tackled and nothing could be made of the opportunity.

We were back on the attacking foot again as around halfway trough the 8th minute, Gannon whips it into the box, which Matty Smith got a good opportunity but Pöhls managed to get to it again and save it.

Not much time passed until the next attack by the Reds, which took place in the 12th minute. A beautiful trough ball was played to Jarvis out on the left, which Jarvis does his standard protocol of bringing it close to the touch line and bringing it back towards the box after, he then takes a shot but it was too close to the keeper and goes down as an easy enough save again for Pöhls.

To be deadly honest, not much happened between then and the 33rd minute where a miniature scrap between players sees Paddy Barret for Shelbourne and Daniel Cleary for Rovers both get themselves booked. And after that again, a few attacks for each side, but give or take not much really happened.

Overall a very strong performance in the first half , a far cry from the nonsense that went on in Galway. Let’s touch on the second half now:

Straight away Shelbourne are back attacking again. Gannon sends a stunning ball trough from the other half which John O’Sullivan runs for, but wasn’t fast enough to continue on his own so knocks it into the centre where John Martin is waiting and hits it first time, but he made it too easy for Pöhls again, practically giving him the ball for free.

John Martin proceeds to get himself booked in the 54th minute. Then Duffer decides to make some changes in the 63rd, brining on Shane Farrell and Evan Caffery for John Martin and Tyreke Wilson respectively. Then, 2 minutes later Shane Farrell gets himself booked. I thought the yellow was very harsh, especially considering he didn’t get a warning beforehand and went straight onto a booking.

Not much happens until the 74th when Sean Boyd comes off the bench for Matty Smith.

Then, just as the 75th minute is closing, Farrell makes a horrific tackle, and it results in Rob Hennessy giving him a second yellow card and reducing the Reds to 10 men for the remaining 15 minutes.

It was a very stupid tackle, and could’ve been avoided. I thought it was completely unnecessary. This sparked some outrage online due to an interview with Damien Duff post game about the incident where Duff brought up Farrell’s personal life.

The reduction to 10 men basically meant we wouldn’t have any sort of attacking presence for the rest of the game and would have to focus on sharing the spoils with the Hoops.

After a well placed tackle on Boyd in the 80th minute, push comes to shove between himself and Honohan, and both get themselves booked because of this.

After this, Rovers looked very strong and were attacking constantly, getting very close to pulling a goal over us at points but were unable to score, and after 97 minutes of play, Rob Hennessy blew his whistle and it was full time in Tolka Park, 0-0.

I thought we played very well that game and a good return from some horrific results. Hopefully this will be used as a turning point back from those games and we can get back to good form.

We didn’t look terrible without Coyler this time out but still could’ve used him at times.

My personal man of the match was Kam Ledwidge. I thought he made very strong and decisive challenges and had a very well rounded performance.

This time out Rob Hennessy was awful, but he wasn’t as bad as he usually was. He could still use with some of that “elite-level referee” training the FAI offer.

That’s all for now, this Friday sees us take on St Pats at home, our last game in April, and our last Dublin derby until may 20th, were coincidentally we face the Saints again.

Thank you all for reading, make sure to get down Friday and get tolka bouncing, get behind the team and make the atmosphere unreal.

UTFR