Shelbourne maintain two-point lead at top as Galway offer little resistence

Damien Duff's men retained their two-point lead at the top of the table, timely ahead of next week's game against a struggling Drogheda United, with a fairly comfortable 2-0 win.

And it summed up the night for a sub-par Galway when they wasted their chance to get back into the game.

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A penalty was missed by sub Francely Lomboto with 17 minutes left to play, as Shels survived that scare to see out the game with a third straight clean sheet. It was an added blow for the away side when former Shels man Aodh Dervin was sent off in the 90th minute for a second bookable offence.

The Reds had this one wrapped up with nine minutes to play in the first half, Galway conceding two soft goals which will not please the hard taskmasters in charge of United, John Caulfield and Ollie Horgan. It's a concern that Galway, out-played for long spells here, have now conceded two goals in three of the last four games while they didn’t really ask questions of a dominant Shels outfit.

Shels have found Galway to be a frustrating opponent this season but it took the Reds just 11 minutes to get in front, and once they had that lead goal they were not going to relinquish it.

Galway will have to look at themselves for how the goal came about as poor defensive play from Jeannot Esua gave Shels the opening they needed, Matty Smith nipped in to get the ball, played in a perfect pass for John Martin who bore down on goal and made no mistake to claim his second goal in three games.

Galway offered little in response but could have been level on 31 minutes, as a lapse in concentration from Shels defender Sean Gannon earned him a rebuke from an angry Duff and also set up Stephen Hurley but his shot was panicked and went wide of the goal.

Shels were dominant in terms of possession while not doing a lot with it until they doubled their lead on 36 minutes, another case of Galway's defence being too open.

Tyreke Wilson played a short corner kick to Liam Burt, he whipped in a cross which goalscorer Martin met at the far post and Evan Caffrey was, unforgivably from a United viewpoint, left unmarked to calmly fire the ball, from a difficult angle, past Brendan Clarke.

Galway boss Caulfield reacted to the sub-par effort in that first half by making three changes at the break but there was no real impact on the game as the central midfield duo of JJ Lunney and Evan Caffrey were bossing things in the middle while another error, from Esua, almost gifted a goal to Matty Smith early in the second half.

There was a glimmer for Galway on 73 minutes when they had a penalty, sub Maurice Nugent bundled over in the box by keeper Conor Kearns but the kick from sub Francely Lomboto was weak and Kearns saved.

Dervin had only been on since half time but he didn't see out the game, dismissed for a second yellow card while in added time Galway were denied a consolation goal when Shane Griffin cleared off the line.

Shelbourne: Kearns; Gannon, Barrett, Ledwidge, Wilson; Lunney, Caffrey (Hakiki 92); Burt (Williams 81), Smith (O'Sullivan 71), Jarvis (Griffin 81); Martin (Boyd 71).

Galway: Clarke; Esua, Slevin (Hickey 46), Brounder, Kazeem (Lomboto 63); Buckley, McCormack (O'Keeffe 63); O'Sullivan, Hurley (Dervin 46), McCarthy (Nugent 46); Walsh.

Ref: R Hennessy