Despite going a goal down to a Markuss Strods strike in the opening seconds, St Patrick's Athletic roared back to beat Bohemians 3-1 at Richmond Park courtesy of a brace from striker Ryan Edmundson and another from Jamie Lennon.
While the Saints have now won back-to-back games to leapfrog Shamrock Rovers and go top of the table, Bohs’ season is unravelling and are now without a win in seven, having lost three in a row.
In comparison to their dull opening day nil-nil draw at the Aviva Stadium, this was a high intensity game and the hosts showed their league credentials as having conceded early, they dominated the visitors.
Indeed the away side could have shipped a lot more given the one-way traffic after the opening goal.
St Pat's went into the game, initially played in bright sunny conditions by the banks of the Camac River, unchanged from last week’s win in Drogheda, while Bohemians brought in Strods for Zane Myers and in the absence of Jordan Flores, Adam McDonnell returned from suspension to start in midfield.
Unbelievably Bohs hit the front after only nine seconds in an explosive start.
The away side kicked off and it was rolled straight back to keeper Kacper Chorazka who immediately launched the ball to the edge of the St Pat’s area.
The clearance was met by the head of Douglas James-Taylor, but he put the ball into Strods’ path and the Latvian scored with a crisp shot into the bottom right-hand corner of the net.
St Pat’s however didn’t panic despite that sensational start for Bohs and were level in the 10th minute as Luke Taylor ghosted by two Bohs defenders before setting up Edmondson lurking 18 yards out, who then turned and shot beyond the despairing dive of Chorazka.
It was Edmundson’s fifth league goal of the season.
Sadly for the hosts they lost Aidan Keena just before the midway point of the first half as his injury woes continued, replaced by Chris Forrester and on the resumption, the Saints had a great opportunity to score the lead goal as Joe Redmond was denied by the legs of the advancing Chorazka.
The home side continued to pound the Bohs defence.
Forrester had a close-range effort blocked, Barry Baggley’s curling shot was fisted away by Chorazka and from the resultant corner Luke Turner hit the angle with a header.
And pressure finally paid off as Jamie Lennon’s deflected low shot, after picking up a poor Sam Todd clearance four minutes before the break, was deflected by Patrick Hickey which wrong-footed Chorazka, putting Stephen Kenny’s side into the lead at half time.
That one-goal advantage went out to two seven minutes after the restart when a Baggley corner was headed on by Forrester and Edmundson, lurking at the back post, headed in his second and the home side’s third which virtually killed off any thoughts of a Bohs comeback.
St Pat's pretty much controlled the second half but Dawson Devoy should really have pulled one back for the visitors on 82 minutes as he found himself one-on-one with keeper Joe Anang, but his attempted half-sidefoot was brilliantly saved one-handed by the Ghanaian international netminder ensuring there would be no grandstand finish for Alan Reynolds' side.
St Patrick’s Athletic: Joseph Anang; James Brown (Ronan Boyce 88), Joe Redmond ©, Tom Grivosti, Luke Turner; Jamie Lennon, Barry Baggley, Kian Leavy, Zach Elbouzedi (Anthony Breslin 67); Aidan Keena (Chris Forrester 21), Ryan Edmondson ((Darragh Nugent 88)
Bohemians: Kacper Chorazka, Darragh Power, Sam Todd, Patrick Hickey, Senan Mullen (Conor Parsons 81); Adam McDonnell (Colm Whelan 61) Dawson Devoy ©, Dayle Rooney (Sadou Diallo 61), Ross Tierney (Zane Myers 61), Markuss Strods, Douglas James-Taylor (Leigh Kavanagh 69)
Referee: Kevin O’Sullivan
Attendance: 5,435
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