Inchicore

Drogheda now sit on 31 points, just two behind Waterford, while Sligo Rovers stay last on 23 points, 10 from safety.

But the main story of the night occurred in Inchicore as St. Patrick's Athletic proved that the title race wasn't dead in the water with a massive 2-0 win over league leader Shamrock Rovers.

Two first half goals from Jason McClelland and Aidan Keenan gave Pats the lead as they held tough in the second half to put themselves in the fight for the Premier Division title.

Owen Heary was alongside Ben Signs for our live and exclusive commentary last night and had this to say at full time.

You know, I think the form lines there suggested this was on tonight, David.

Yeah, I mean, it feels like that loss in Europe... against our Armenia kind of just has thrown Rovers for a loop ever since like they just haven't really been able to find their feet at all so it kind of feels like anytime there's a game with sort of anything major at stake they might sort of be there for the take and it's a really really bad time to happen and I know like Bradley has been consistently saying you know it's it's difficult to question the mentality of the group it's not really questioning the mentality of the group at this stage like it's regardless of who it is or what you've achieved having a situation like that where you've got what was it a three goal lead to then go and get upended in the reverse leg like that that's not a difficult that's not an easy thing for anybody to come back from and then to try and pick up your lead campaign after successive rounds of defeats in Europe like that it it just seems to be the worst possible time for this to happen to them and like you said Pat's very much seen to they just seem to be back on track now and the football just seems to be a lot better and as you mentioned the defensive solidity I think every team in the league at some stage of the season has just been calamitous at the back at times but Pats seem to be almost putting a stop to the errors that they have at the back that have been unforced and I mean when you're in a situation like this that's exactly what you need you need that defensive solidity before you can do anything because at a minimum you're going to get a point if you can keep a clean sheet but you know If you can tie that with the attack going forward, then yeah, it just kind of seemed like it was going to be Pat's game today, especially the fact that it was in in Jakarta tonight as well.

Yeah.

Keep your turnaround now.

stuff you definitely saw that during the crash so I think we're going to talk about all that

but I do think it's connected bringing it back to politics I think like there's a lot of people in Ireland who are doing really really well you talk about the difference from going from Kimmage to Inchacore go from Dalkey to Fairview you know There are parts of Dublin, Ireland, the coastal areas in particular, that are extremely well-privileged, who are completely living in a bubble.

And the reality is there's sufficient numbers of people in Ireland doing well enough to keep successive governments in place who acknowledge that there's a problem that needs to be done on housing, acknowledge the homelessness issue, acknowledge the addiction issue, but not enough of a concern because fundamentally their voter base is not pushing them in that direction.

So yeah, I think a lot of this gets back to another enduring mish of Irish politics and society, which is that there's no class.

That, of course, was the only League of Ireland Premier Division game last Friday night.

As I said, they will travel to Inchicore to face St Patrick's Athletic.

That is gonna be our live and exclusive League of Ireland commentary game this Friday night.

Eoin Heary is gonna be alongside myself to call first versus second in Richmond Park on Friday.

I thought it was brilliant spectacle to watch.

I was in Inchicore as well.

So when I got home, I put my feet up and I just enjoyed it.

I live in the shadow of Crowe Park.

I went for dinner with Gene Kilroy, the former manager of Muhammad Ali, and he spoke about the 1972 fight with Al Blue Lewis in Croke Park.

And Gene has his own Irish lineage from Inchicore, I believe, in Dublin.

So he was buzzing to get back to the homeland, I suppose it was, as an Irish-American, and witness that and see the Irish fawn over Muhammad Ali, rightly so.

And the fact that it's taken all this time for it to happen again in Croke Park, is amazing when you consider the history in this stadium and yeah further history being made tonight so really looking forward to that one and tickets like gold dust as I believe so very tough to get their hands on them but yeah going to be a huge night and as I said that undercard is going to be cracking as well it's another one of our great current sports stars John is of course Troy Parrott and he was the match winner yeah This is incredible.