Shamrock Rovers 1
Purcell 90+2'
Galway Utd. 0

Tolka Park - Friday 4th August 2006 ko 8.00pm

Rovers Line-Out

1 Barry Murphy, 2 Ger O'Brien, 3 Robbie Clarke , 4 Aidan Price, 5 Shane Guthrie, 6 Vinny Perth , 7 Jamie Duffy, 8 Mark O'Brien, 9 Tadhg Purcell, 10 Gerard Rowe, 11 David McGill.

Substitutes : 13 Chris Breen, 14 Ian Ryan for Price 72', 15 Andy Myler for Rowe 72', 16 Dave Cassidy for Duffy 55', 17 John McGuinness.

Match Report

It looked like the Hoops would fail to score for the third time against Galway but deep into injury time the alert Cassidy robbed defender Clery and sent in a precise cross for the unmarked Purcell to gleefully head past Gough. It was a dramatic end to a game that was high on effort and endeavour but short on goal mouth incident.

The Hoops had the bulk of the play in the first half and Gough was called on to hold a Perth shot in the 10th minute. Purcell sent Rowe in on goal in the 18th minute but Charles got across to nick the ball away. Galway were happy to soak up any pressure and only looked dangerous at set-pieces when Wesley Charles got forward. He headed down for Murphy to blast over the bar in the 31st minute.

Perth was booked for what looked like a tough but fair challenge in the 32nd minute before McGill just failed to latch on to a through ball from Purcell. Perth made a fine tackle to block a cross in the 40th minute and from the resulting corner Guthrie made another good tackle on Charles as he stormed into the box. Purcell almost found Duffy at the back post on 41 minutes before Price had to head clear after a United free-kick caused a scramble in the Rovers box.

The best move of the game came just four minutes into the second-period as Duffy headed on to Purcell who drove a low cross into the box for Rowe to flick just wide. McGill then sent in a free-kick but Perth couldn't direct his header on goal. The Hoops had a let-off in the 56th minute when a Galway corner was tipped onto the crossbar by Barry Murphy and the rebound was bundled into the net but the Ref. blew for a free-kick.

On 68 minutes a Perth quick free-kick sent Cassidy away and his low cross almost found Purcell in the centre. Barry Murphy was kept on his toes at the other end to keep out a snap shot on the turn from Alan Murphy. Andy Myler was introduced in the 72nd minute for his debut but the game exploded when Mick O'Donnell was sent off after pushing Cassidy as he was about to be booked for a previous tackle.

Rovers pushed on but only had a shot from Perth in the 84th minute that Gough got down well to save to show for their efforts until Cassidys dramatic intervention set up Purcell to grab all three points.