Derek Pender: We played the Bohs way

Bohemians interim manager Derek Pender said the players were determined to put in the kind of performance that departed boss Keith Long had been seeking all season, in the wake of their rousing 1-0 win over Shamrock Rovers at Dalymount Park.

Three days after the exit of longstanding manager Long - who'd delivered European football and a runners-up finish amid continuously high player turnover over his eight-year stint - Bohs pipped their bitter rivals in a tempestuous derby, Liam Burt firing home a stylishly taken winning goal on 72 minutes.

After a relatively tentative first half, in which the visitors had most of the ball, without creating too many clear-cut chances, the intensity was ratcheted up after the break, a series of heavy tackles flying in straight from the re-start.

Dylan Watts saw red with just over 20 minutes remaining, cutting down Burt in the final third and receiving a second yellow card. It was three minutes later that the Scot curled home the only goal, deftly side-stepping Andy Lyons before slotting past Alan Mannus from the edge of the box.

"Great night! Great result and a great performance for the lads tonight," a delighted Pender told RTÉ Sport afterwards.

"They dug in, they helped each other, they played as a team tonight. They played really a Bohs way.

"It was brilliant. It was a big Dublin derby, you don't really need to say much to get players up for that type of game. And with the fans behind you, it looks after itself.

"The first half was pretty even, Rovers probably had more of the ball. We had chances in transition where we could have hurt them a bit more if we had a bit more belief. In the first half, you'd say we were playing a bit tentative because the confidence wasn't there.

"We gave them a