‘ St.Patrick v Shamrock Rovers ‘

By Ian Hallam (Cardiff City Fan)

Went to this local derby Saturday and what a difference it was to the previous nights game Eire v Wales.

As you can imagine it was on a much smaller scale than the previous nights game but it match it in passion and dare I say it won on entertainment easily. The stronger outfit Shamrock Rovers, 3rd in the Irish premier league took an early lead against the bottom of the table home side. They scored in front of the home fans and the way they celebrated right in front of the home ultras was just amusing. Adding to the fun one of the Shamrock fans managed to get into one of the home ends, the end opposite the ultras should I say, pinch a St. Patricks flag and run across the pitch into the saftey of the away end. This doubled the away supports banter with “We’ve only got your flag”. For the record these home ultras had all us visiting Welsh fans in with them and there were quite a few of us. You could see the Welsh flag all over the ground including one in the visitors stand.

The visitors look like they were going to run away with the game but then made it very difficult for themselves. Half way through the first half we saw a repeat of the infamous tackle from the previous night reducing the visitors down to 10 men. From then onward it was all the home side. They played the perfect system against a 10 man team and that was using the full width of the pitch. The home team failed to equalise in the first half but you felt it was only a question of time before they did at the restart.

We had to wait half way through the second half before they did get their goal. The ultras had been supporting their team from the start but now they stepped it up a gear with the help of us Welsh amongst them. The winner came with 10 minutes to go when St.Patrick made their last subsitution after they had won a corner. You all guess right, the substitute with his first touch, a header from the corner that hit the underside of the bar, scored the winner and it resulted in the whole home team celebrating in front of the ultras. You can imagine the passion match anything any of us have witnessed.

The away team tried to get an equaliser as the game neared its end. The ultras cheered their team on to hold on but us Welsh noticed the away keeper getting wound up over anything that did not go his teams way. We switch our attention to having a go against him while the home support begged for the final whistle. Such was the way this game was going us Welsh quitely hoped the away team would get a corner only to see their keeper go up for it and get the equaliser. That never happened fortunately else us Welsh would have applauded him out of respect which would have not been the right thing to do in our position.

A great game at grass roots although it was a Premier status.