UCD  (0) 1  - Meenan 88'      
Rovers (2) 6 - Twigg 33' 41' Sheppard 51' Dennehy 77' Kilduff 87' 90+1'              
 

Airtricity League - Belfield Bowl - Friday 10th June 2011 

Hoops Line out
1 Alan Mannus
2 Pat Sullivan
22 Conor McCormack
4 Craig Sives
5 Dan Murray (c)
7 Gary McCabe
21 Ronan Finn
18 Chris Turner
20 Billy Dennehy
9 Gary Twigg
10 Karl Sheppard

Substitutes
6 Stephen Rice
for Finn 60'
8 Stephen O'Donnell
for Turner HT
11 Ciaran Kilduff
for Twigg 70'
14 Dean Kelly 
16 Ryan Thompson
19 Gary O'Neill
17 Ken Oman
 

Ciaran Kilduff...two goals against his former side

Rovers ran out convincing winners as the Students found themselves 2 goals and a man down at half-time and the Hoops duly took advantage in the second period.

The game was preceded by a minutes silence for John Conroy whose tragic death has shaken Hoops fans to the core.

On a showery night in Belfield the game started as a scrappy affair with Chris Turner battling hard but the Hoops were finding it difficult to breach the UCD defence.

It wasn't for want of trying however and early crosses from Gary McCabe had the Students defence working hard. However the home 'keeper Barron was rarely troubled in the first half-hour.

After 31 mins the Students had an effort on goal when Harding cut in from the right and unleased a fine strike that just went over Alan Mannus's cross-bar.

However the Hoops were ahead a couple of minutes later when a Dennehy corner was headed across goal by Sives and Turner forced a great save from Barron but the irrepressible Gary Twigg got his boot to the ball and the Hoops were one up.

UCD almost equalised immediately from a well worked free-kick but Sives just manged to divert the ball off his own post for a corner.

Rovers increased their lead on 41 minutes with a classic goal that saw Sullivan feed Finn down the right and his quality cross saw Twigg guide the ball past Barron and into the net.

UCD then suffered a body blow as Leahy was sent off as he tried to get to a stray defensive pass but Dennehy's pace forced him to bring the Hoops number 20 down and the Ref. produced a straight red card.

It got worse for the home side within two minutes of the restart when McCabe picked out Karl Sheppard to glance the ball into the corner of the net.

The Students kept trying to play their passing game but their three man defence were constantly under pressure from Gary McCabe as he seemed to enjoy the freedom of the pitch.

The Hoops could have extended their lead from McCabes many crosses but it wasn't until the 77th minute that Kilduff met a cross at the back post and set-up Dennehy to shoot home via a deflection. All this after the Students had missed a rare chance to get a gaol when their number 17 shot over the bar having got behind the Hoops defence.

The chances kept coming but when Ciaran Kilduff met another McCabe cross on 86 minutes he thought he had scored but Barron made a brilliant save. However from the resultant corner Kilduff headed into the net from McCabe's cross.

Straight away at the other end Meenan scored a fine consolation goal when he curled his shot past Mannus into the top right-hand corner of the net.

Rovers had the final say when Sullivan raced down the right and his cross was met by Sheppard and his shot was turned in at the back post by Kilduff.

  

Rovers fans honour the memory of one of their finest - John Conroy - during the minutes silence in Belfield tonight.
(Photo by George Kelly)