Anthony McIntyre ⚽ It was my first trip to Tallaght Stadium in Dublin.
Paddy had been there previously and told me it was quite the venue as we set out in the car for our journey from Drogheda to watch the Drogs take on the current champions on their home turf. Not the easiest of fixtures for a team struggling to lift itself up from the bottom of the table.
Although I had been in Tallaght previously I hadn't realised just how close to the Luas line the stadium is. Useful, if I should decide at some point to go to a Shamrock Rovers game on my own, regardless of who they are playing. The leisure of being a senior citizen!
The stadium is certainly in mint condition. Not the Aviva, for sure, but nobody expects it to belong to that super strata. It got us talking in mouthwatering terms about how the Drogs' new stadium might look when the club eventually vacates Weavers Park.
On the journey down we had lots more time to talk than usual. The trip takes about an hour so we covered a lot of ground, little of it about soccer or the fortunes of the Drogs, a lot of it about the racism that has been on open display throughout the country in recent times. J, fortunately, was spared all of it. He slept much of the journey having stayed up most of the night before on a sleep over. Why they are called sleep overs confuses me as the kids never seem to sleep on them.
We settled in our seats comfortably under a roof that looked unlikely to leak once the rain arrived. It was a lovely evening but this is Ireland where they say if you have complaints about the weather not to worry, it will change in fifteen minutes. Our view was perfect, the Ultras were in fine form, one of them telling me as he made his way to the Ultra section that he looked forward to this piece. Always nice to hear that my writing can please as well as annoy.
For the first five minutes the Drogs looked to have the bit between their teeth homing in on the Hoops' last line of defence. A first minute header, better directed, could have opened the scoring. By the sixth minute the defence was found to be toothless, conceding a needless goal after a woeful miskick from the usually reliable James Bolger. To my right I could hear my son seethe 'terrible, terrible.'
The home support was ecstatic with the fortuitous advantage so early in the game. In the stands our heads dropped. The Ultras, determined that it would not be infectious and spread to the field of play, upped their noise in the hope that the Drogs would up their game.
Drogheda rallied . . . a bit. In the first twenty minutes they were getting some good crosses into the box with Elicha Ahui a persistent menace to the home defence. But no Drog to get on the end of one. As the game progressed it seemed that the Hoops were cutting through the Drogheda defence much too easily. It was a problem that replicated itself in midfield where the Hoops all too often strolled with time to think where to make the pass when they should have been closed down, forced to make the error.
When in the 25th minute Frantz Pierrot ballooned an effort from about 23 yards out over the bar, the exasperation was audible. He was nowhere to be seen when good crosses found their way into the box. His performance didn't improve and the fans responded with curses and cries of move, move, FFS, move. Once he held up the ball ably enough but turned so slowly that one of the fans compared it to a manoeuvre like that of a Dublin bus. I quipped to Paddy if they ever plan on building a statue of him at the home stadium they could save themselves a sculptor, simply get him to stand there himself. It would look so natural. The calls from the stands for a sub to replace him went unheard in the technical area.
It might be a truism to say that if you want to beat champions you have to play like champions. By the thirty minute mark when the players used a stoppage due to injury for a water break, Shamrock Rovers were not playing like champions and Drogheda still showed no sign of being able to beat them.
The last action of the half saw another Drogs effort from distance held by the keeper but not in a manner that would inspire confidence amongst his teammates.
From early into the second half there were increasing calls for Darragh Markey to come on. When it eventually happened there was a serious injection of pace into the side. The visitors now seemed to have the measure of the home side and it wasn't long before they had them on the ropes. A surging run by Conor Kane, similar to the one against Bohemians, led to James-Taylor snatching the equalizer. Prior to that we would have taken the point but now myself and Paddy discussed whether the team should sit it out or press for a second. We agreed that with both Bolger and the Hoops keeper unsteady it was best to press forward. Even if they didn't score the Drogs could keep the Hoops in their own half. Disaster almost struck when Bolger hesitated, before deciding on a clumsy back pass that went beyond the keeper and drifted by for a corner.
In the end there could have been few complaints had the Drogs come away with all three points. After the early setback they showed guts and determination. This is a team that simply does not deserve the drop. What Kevin Doherty has done over the past two months should not be underestimated. On offer is a quality of football which the League of Ireland Premier Division needs and Division One would be spoiled by.
With the Bohs and Dundalk both proving unable to creep further away from the nether regions of the league table, the Drogs, if they can persist with the current formation, will make it to the play-off position, avoiding automatic relegation. Dundalk, while two points clear, must be looking over their shoulders at the claret and blue looming large behind them.
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The conversation on the way home l hope was a more upbeat affair... Frantz aside, of course!
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