Shamrock Rovers 1
Derry City 0
A DISPIRITING NIGHT for Derry City and an ominous one for anyone hoping for a true title race coming down the season’s stretch.
Rory Gaffney’s goal sealed a victory that sends Shamrock Rovers seven points clear of Derry at the top of the table, a precious buffer with just 13 league games remaining and Europe now on the horizon for both.
Derry’s squad is deep but it’s not deep enough to deal with the absences of Patrick McEleney and Michael Duffy: their attack was dulled even before they lost Ryan Graydon to a injury before half-time. While Derry had enough of the ball in this game to feel they deserved something, the cold truth is they didn’t create a good goalscoring chance across the whole game.
Derry sprung a surprise by playing a back three to match Rovers’ system, and they pressed high and man-to-man on Rovers’ early restarts. It confounded Rovers for a while, and Stephen Bradley spent the early minutes screaming vainly at goalkeeper Leon Pohls to bypass Derry’s high press entirely.
But Derry didn’t profit while Rovers were distractedly gripping the puzzle in front of them. The closest they came to scoring was when Brandon Kavanagh turned neatly in midfield and then sent a 25-yard shot curling the wrong side of Pohls’ post.
Derry’s smart set-up bought them a head start – they moved the ball slickly around Rovers midfield in the early stages – but, in failing to test Pohls, they squandered it. Rovers figured their way around Derry’s set-up and had they scored on the 13th minute, Stephen Bradley might have claimed the assist. He quickly flicked an out-of-play ball rolling toward him into Richie Towell’s arms, who instantly slung it to set Johnny Kenny one-on-one with Brian Maher. Kenny lifted the ball over the onrushing Maher, but Cameron Dummigan recovered to hack the ball away in front of an empty net before Kenny could score.
Kenny then exhibited his all-round game, dropping smartly off Shane McEleney before quickly swivelling and sending Towell clear on goal, but Maher blocked his shot. Derry lost the vim and snap of their early start and grew passive, too passive. Dummigan trundled out with possession but left a pass too short for Ryan Graydon, onto which Sean Hoare nipped. He gave the ball to Rory Gaffney, who was allowed to arc in from the touchline and then roll a shot from the edge of the box into Maher’s bottom-right corner. Maher was slow to get to the ground, but he may claim he was unsighted.
Rovers continued to look dangerous in attack and a couple of gorgeous Sean Kavanagh crosses from the left deserved finishing touches: the first skidded by everyone while the second was just too high for Neil Farrugia, arriving at the back post.
The luckless Farrugia didn’t make it to half-time as he limped off with what looked like a muscle injury. Graydon had limped off a few minutes earlier to cap a miserable evening for Graydon, who was booked for diving when he went to ground after the outstanding Roberto Lopes cleanly won a challenge in the penalty area.
Rovers’ control of the game slackened after half-time but Derry again created little and when Cameron McJannett slid a pass down the left-side channel to absolutely nobody, Ruaidhri Higgins spun around and almost ripped his jumper apart in frustration.
But pretty much all Derry had to worry about in the second half were their own, fist-gnawing limitations in attack, as Rovers’ counter-attacking waned, with the champions reasonably happy to hunker down and protect a precious win.
The final minutes brought the usual fraying nerves but Derry didn’t do anything to prey on them further, with Mark Connolly’s snapshot from an unfriendly angle in the box the sum total of their late efforts.
If this was the night the title got away from Derry City, it was a bloodless way to lose it.
Shamrock Rovers: Leon Pohls; Sean Hoare, Roberto Lopes (captain), Daniel Cleary; Neil Farrugia (Sean Gannon, 45′); Markus Poom, Richie Towell (Dylan Watts, 76′), Jack Byrne (Liam Burt, 63′); Sean Kavanagh; Rory Gaffney (Simon Power, 76′), Johnny Kenny (Graham Burke, 63′)
Derry City: Brian Maher; Ronan Boyce; Shane McEleney, Cameron McJannet (captain), Cameron Dummigan (Mark Connolly, 66′); Ben Doherty; Sadou Diallo (Cian Kavanagh, 75′), Adam O’Reilly; Ryan Graydon (Jordan McEneff, 37′), Jamie McGonigle, Brandon Kavanagh
Referee: Rob Hennessy
Attendance: 5824