LEADERSHIP WAS THE common theme after Shelbourne snatched a 90th-minute winner against St Patrick’s Athletic on Friday.

Stephen Kenny was calling for more of it from his players, pointing out that only Chris Forrester and Sean Hoare have experience of winning league titles in a squad that are expected to challenge for the Premier Division crown.

“We’ve got some amazing characters in the team – Joe Redmond the captain, Jamie Lennon, and people like that, they’re bobbling along but it’s not a good goal to concede either,” he said of that late sucker punch.

“We’ve played a lot of good football in a lot of games but obviously Drogheda away was just a bad game. We’ve played a lot of good football and you see [on Friday], very good, but we don’t want to get into the habit of losing games and certainly….a win would have put us in a great position, a really great position.”

Instead, Pat’s are fifth, four points off leaders Shamrock Rovers who top the table ahead of Derry City on goal difference after victories over Drogheda United and Cork City, respectively.

Shels boss Damien Duff, meanwhile, just wanted those in his dressing room to take a leaf out of captain Mark Coyle’s book.

“I know you all look at me like I’m going up there throwing pots and pans. I can’t remember the last time I screamed in a dressing room,” he said.

“I’m very calm. I could hear Coyler (captain Mark Coyle) five rooms away screaming and that’s what I want. I could hear Coyler screaming, tearing the heads off people and that’s what I want, we’re champions, I want men in the dressing room.”

Everyone in Tolka Park – except those of a St Pat’s persuasion – were roaring with delight after Kerr McInroy showed the type of stamina and technique that has come to be expected of him since joining this winter.

Duff worked with him at Celtic during his time in Scotland and attempted to sign the midfielder in every season since taking the reins in Drumcondra.

Last winter Duff collected McInroy at Dublin airport, brought him over for a weekend of training and made sure he signed on the dotted line.

Such has been the Scot’s impact a new deal was then agreed in April, with Duff declaring in the club’s announcement: “Humble, Respectful, Honest, Resilient, Driven, Confident, Clever, Positive, Energetic, Consistent, Affable, Brilliant. To some that would be the perfect player. To us, it is Kerr…….”

But still the manager wants more from a player who has an explosiveness to his game that is matched by an ability to regularly cover around 11.5km per game.

McInroy walked into the media room at Tolka on Friday night just as Duff was in the middle of his post-match duties.

The manager didn’t need a second invitation to send a message about urging him to become more voca.

It was the obvious place to start with McInroy once he took a seat.

“I’d agree with him that I’m definitely too quiet. It’s probably something I need to improve on in the group,” he said.

“It’s something I’ve never really done but I probably need to push myself out of my comfort zone and talk more in the group. Obviously, as a person, I talk away to the boys, it’s probably more speaking in the changing room. I’m quite quiet when it comes to that.

“I kind of think, it isn’t in my nature anyway to kind of be a loud one, but if I was to come in here, a Scottish guy that none of the boys really know, and just start ranting and raving, they’d probably be like, ‘who’s that?’ So, you kind of need to earn your stripes first before you do it.

“It’s probably something I’ve never ever done in any dressing room I’ve been in. So I probably need to push myself out of my comfort zone and just go for it.”

McInroy has also ended up as somewhat of a catalyst for the row between Duff and Rovers boss Stephen Bradley after being heralded as the best midfielder in the country.

“It’s just about playing football on the pitch. I’m not really bothered about anything else. So it’s just kind of about getting my head down and focusing on my game,” he said.

“If it maybe adds a bit more attention to me, then so be it, but that’s kind of not really up to me to decide that. I just need to focus on what I do on the pitch.”

That is where he’s leading by example.