SSE Airtricity Premier Division: Shelbourne 0 Shamrock Rovers 0
A sticky test on a sticky pitch was passed by leaders Shelbourne to keep champions Shamrock Rovers three points at bay.
Both managers were booked and Shels substitute Shane Farrell walked for incurring two impetuous bookings 12 minutes apart but this was low grade turgid stuff overall.
Nobody could blame former Liverpool midfielder Charlie Adam, seeking another bargain buy for Fleetwood Town, for fleeing before full-time.
Demand to witness the Damien Duff revolution had exceeded supply but this was the fixture flagged as the one to feature extra terracing to lift the attendance above 5,000 for the first time since the glory days of the mid-noughties. A midweek school night mitigated against that threshold being reached.
Had the original FAI disciplinary committee decision stood, the much-awaited top-of-the table clash would have been played behind entirely closed doors.
That was the sanction they applied for an adolescent Shels fan throwing a smoke bomb onto the Drogheda United pitch that struck assistant referee Dermot Broughton, necessitating a late break in play for treatment.
Gone is the era of the City Hall FAI using colourful pyrotechnics to promote the domestic product and their proliferation as the crowds rocket was bound to invoke a test case.
A swiftly-assembled appeal grouping, however, dropped the home element of the punishment to mirror the away supporters ban meted out to Bohemians for their incident earlier in the season. Home side Galway were the only ones to feel the cost last Friday.
Wise sages would argue this spectacle – carried live on Virgin Media too – was never going to be sacrificed to administer a lesson and there was a
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