Champions Bohemians and new Premier side Sporting Fingal provided the main event of tonight’s Airtricity League of Ireland opener at Dalymount Park even though the went out 10 minutes before everyone else. Management at Bohs would have been delighted to see the whole Jodi Stand packed to the brim and half of the Des Kelly stand full too.

Not even a minute into this massive game and there was a moment of madness when the knee of Mark Quigley introducing itself to the head of Fingals Lorcan Fitzgerald, thankfully all was well with him and the game went on. Bohs had the first opportunity and really should have been on the board in the opening 10 minutes when Quigley provided a lovely ball for Killian Brennan who found nothing but air with his boot and there was no doubt that the keeper would have been beaten had Brennan connected with the ball. Fingal later had a moment of their own in front of goal minutes later when a class shot from Fingal’s leading scorer Conan Byrne was fingertiped over the bar by Bohs new net stopper Barry Murphy and out for a corner, but noting came from that, so on opening night in the opening half plenty of entertainment to keep the RTE camera men awake and alive.

As time went on in the first half the new boys on the block were piling the pressure on the champions and a massive mistake from Glenn Cronin with a dangerous foul almost set it up for Fingal, Conan Byrne had a good curl and it was heading goalbound but Conor Powel’s good defensive skills put it away for a corner which was cleared by Bohs captain Owen Heary. Bohs had 1 or 2 more chances as well to their credit, a nicely delivered corner on the 34th minute reached Paddy Madden but his shot denied by Fingal’s Ger O’Brien. As the first half wound up it was just a case of cat and mouse chasing and the half finished scoreless.

The second half started with a little more consistency from Sporting Fingal and only seconds had gone in the half and Fingal should have been ahead when Gary O’Neil not only caught Bohs on the hop but the rest of his team mates too, a shot out of nowhere went centimetres wide but had Barry Murphy well beaten as he dove across the wrong way. That moment of madness was followed my 24 minutes of pure boring football and suddenly didn’t seem like a massive game and those camera men looked out for the night, this surely wasn’t champions football from Bohs which certainly did not make Pat Fenlon look like a happy man, on the other side of the coin Liam Buckley looked really impressed at his sides first performance in the Premier Division.

There were a few stupid tackles from both teams but the most costly came on 75 minutes when Keith Quinn pulled down Anto Murphy in the area and referee Derek Tomney was quick to point to the spot. Killian Brennan stood up and took a cool penalty to give Bohemians the first goal of their season which left the full Jodi Stand buzzing. It just wouldn’t be a League of Ireland match without totally feckless decisions from the FAI’s “bright spark” referees this proved when Kenny Browne brought down Conor Powel with a rather rough challenge. Ref Tomney saw it the other way and not only awarded Fingal a free kick but booked Coner Powel, leaving the Bohs fans rightfully angered and rather confused. After 4 minutes of added time the ref finally blew the final whistle and Bohemians took all three points in their first game of the season leaving fans singing “Are you watching Rovers scum”.

Final Score Bohemians 1 Sporting Fingal 0

Bohemians: B.Murphy(GK), O.Heary(C), C.Powel, G.Cronin, S.Gray, B.Shelly, A.Murphy, P.Keegan, P.Madden, M.Quigley, K.Brennan

SUBS; R.Cretaro, M.Rossiter, R.Higgins, G.McGlynn, C.O’Connor(GK)

Sporting Fingal: B.Clarke(GK), G.OBrien, L.Fitzgerald, S.Williams, S.Mahar(C), K.Browne, C.Byrne, R.Finn,G.O Neil, K.Quinn, S.Mc Faul

SUBS; S.Paisley, C.James, G.Crowe, D.Quigley, A. Kirby

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