Rovers do their part of the bargain but fall short on wild night of near-miss and false rumour

Gavin Cooney reports from Tallaght Stadium

Shamrock Rovers 2

Waterford 1

AT THE END the Shamrock Rovers players dawdled uneasily in the middle of the pitch, stuck in disappointment’s waiting room and waiting to hear their number.

The final update came from an Off the Ball commentator with a direct line to the Brandywell, who gestured to the Rovers PA announcer, who then relayed the news. 

It’s done. 

Shamrock Rovers streak of league titles has ended at four, and one of the greatest League of Ireland teams of all give way to one of the best Irish sporting stories in a long, long time. 

Rovers upheld their bargain, nervily beating Waterford 2-1, all the while hoping not to hear anything from Shelbourne’s game at Derry. But ultimately, Harry Wood’s late, late goal for Shelbourne arrived for Rovers fans like the recordings from a black box: something you only hear when it’s all gone wrong. 

Rovers hadn’t led the league all season but led for almost all of the final night, apart from at the moment that mattered. 

The Rovers players did a lap of honour to soak in the warm admiration of their supporters, but the night was sucked of all energy. Once the last of the squad disappeared down the tunnel, the silence in the air hung palpably. 

Rovers needed to win and thus Stephen Bradley stacked his team with attackers. Darragh Burns and Neil Farrugia started as wing-backs with all of Dylan Watts, Jack Byrne, Graham Burke, and Johnny Kenny ahead of them. 

Waterford, meanwhile, matched Rovers by picking a back three, which proved better in an attacking sense than a defensive sense. With left wing-back Shane Flynn pushing very high, wide attacker Connor Parsons floated in-field and into acres of space. His pace and direct running caused Rovers all manner of problems, and Pico Lopes was booked after only two minutes for upending Parsons as he skated through. 

Waterford’s back three, however, were vulnerable to direct passes, and it brought a tension-shattering goal for Rovers after only three minutes. Graham Burke hooked a long pass to try and bisect a couple of Waterford defenders, and Flynn’s clumsy touch then helped it on its way through to Johnny Kenny. 

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Kenny, at odds with a nerve-jangling night, cooly chipped the onrushing goalkeeper. The screams from the stands were expressions of relief as much as joy, and then chants of Hoops are top of the league zipped around the ground. 

Rovers continued to have joy by hitting Waterford over the top, and would have scored a second had Kenny attacked enticing pull-backs by Burke and Jack Byrne. And when Kenny did make contact with a cross from Byrne, it was much too heavy and steered the ball away from goal. 

Waterford, meanwhile, came to play, and all was conducted by captain Barry Bagley in midfield. They built with more patience than Rovers, and tried to punch holes with Parsons’ direct running. Failing that, the presence of Podge Amond in the box made every cross a threat, and Parsons could only volley straight at Leon Pohls when one such ball broke beautifully for him in the box. 

Rovers were pinned back for the middle chunk of the first half, and when Neil Farrugia made a hames of a clearance from the endline by trying to dribble his way out of trouble, Josh Honohan bailed him out with a crucial intervention at the back post. Honohan’s berating scream in reaction gave an insight into the Rovers mindset. Nonetheless, when Rovers were outplayed in midfield, their back three stood tall: Lee Grace threw himself brilliantly at another cross to deny Amond in the penalty area shortly before half-time. 

When the players left for the break, Rovers were top of the league. 

If Waterford exposed Stephen Bradley’s sheer number of selected attackers in the first half, Rovers justified them early in the second half. It was created by one wing-back switching to another: Darragh Burns clipped cross fell for Neil Farrugia at the back post, who took a touch and rifled a volley that slammed off the woodwork. The ball fell ideally for Dylan Watts, who, in a change to his recent regular programming, finished from close range.  

The Tallaght crowd gave one last roar of full engagement: now the better part of their attention would be on matters in Derry. This was becoming less of a football match than a mass test event of the resilience of RTÉ Player. 

Rovers withdrew Burke and Byrne and the game appeared to be dwindling away to a confirmed conclusion when Amond suddenly re-injected the night with its fretful kind of energy. It was a moment of pure centre-forward play: Amond hung behind Lopes and then attacked a low cross by Dean McMenamy before sweeping the ball into the bottom corner. 

Minutes later, Amond sent a floating header onto the top of the crossbar and the atmosphere further churned. Gone was any sense of exuberance or even calm:  reproachful groans rolled down the stands when Kenny scuffed a shot wide and Burns overcooked a through-ball. 

Waterford kept the pressure on, and Amond, by now staking his claim as a one-man narrative machine, slammed a sweet volley inches over Pohls’ crossbar.  

But just as the Rovers fans were reckoning with disaster in front of them, the malign envoy came from Derry. It was delivered by the burst of cruel joy from the Waterford fans, who started singing, “Shelbourne, Shelbourne, top of the league.”

Tallaght slumped in dejection. And then, moments later, the ground erupted into bedlam, as word filtered through the ground of a Derry equaliser. Stephen Bradley turned to the crowd and held up his index fingers, asking if it was really 1-1. 

He was told it was but, cruelly, it was not: Shels still led 1-0. 

With the atmosphere now curdled and dead, the Waterford fans ran through their repertoire. 

He’s in your heaaaaads, in your heaaaaads, Duffer, Duffer 

It was at that point that Rovers were first struck by their own powerlessness. 

It now abides. 

 Shamrock Rovers: Leon Pohls; Darragh Burns; Lee Grace, Pico Lopes, Josh Honohan; Neil Farrugia; Gary O’Neill (Markus Poom, 80′), Dylan Watts; Jack Byrne (Aaron McEneff, 67′), Graham Burke (Aaron Greene, 67′); Johnny Kenny (Marc McNulty, 80′)

Waterford: Sam Sargeant; Darragh Power; Grant Horton, Darragh Leahy, Kacper Radkowski; Shane Flynn (Ryan Burke, 59′); Barry Bagley, Ben McCormack; Connor Parsons(Christie Pattison, 80′), Padraig Amond, Dean McMenamy

Referee: Neil Doyle 

Attendance: 9,522