St Patrick's Athletic (1) - Shelbourne (0)

St Patrick's Athletic 1 - Shelbourne 0

Jake Mulraney proved the match-winner thanks to a stunning free kick, worthy of winning any game.

In front of a bumper crowd in the South Dublin sunshine, it was the Saints who went marching on with their third 1-0 win in a row over Damien Duff's Shelbourne.

It was the visitors who started the brighter in a fast and frenetic opening period and could have been in front after just four minutes.

Sean Boyd did well to win the ball high up and saw it fall kindly to his strike partner Jack Moylan.

The pacy front man drove at the Pat's defence and was desperately unlucky to see his curling effort miss the foot of the post by inches.

Having this week collected his Republic of Ireland men's U18 Player of the Year award, Sam Curtis proved why there is so much hype around him with a strong performance against one of the league's more physical front men in Boyd.

The visitors continued to flow forward.

Andrew Quinn played a clever one-two with Boyd, the centre back continuing his run, before delivering a low cross to the front post but where Moylan was a hair's breadth away from tapping home.

Minutes later Jamie Lennon had the home fans off their seats with a stinging drive from 30-yards out that Conor Kearns eventually gathered at the second attempt

The hosts finished the half much stronger and somehow failed to take the lead after two almighty goalmouth scrambles in quick succession.

Anto Breslin delivered a deep cross to the back post, finding Jake Mulraney, who saw his header come back off the post. Ben McCormack looked to have an open goal on the follow up but his attempt blocked and cleared off the line by Gavin Molloy.

From the resulting corner, Shels again somehow managed to clear off the line as it remained scoreless at the break.

Ten minutes into the second half the game reached boiling point when Sam Curtis did his best to first stop a break from Mark Coyle, who had a kick back at him, before the young defender flew into a high challenge on Shane Griffin.

Both sets of players clashed as a spate of yellow cards followed for the coming together with the game well and truly on a knife-edge.

Minutes later the deadlock was finally broken when JJ Lunney took down Mulraney in a dangerous area, 25 yards out, just to the right of the box.

The winger dusted himself down and struck a beautifully hit free kick over the wall into the top corner

That's how it remained despite the visitors best attempts to force an equaliser as the home side held firm.

© rte.ie

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St Patrick's Athletic 1 - Shelbourne 0

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