Shamrock Rovers and Derry City have creases to iron out

The weekend's SSE Airtricity Men's Premier Division action was not a satisfying one for title favourites Shamrock Rovers and Derry City as both marked the halfway point of the league season with 1-0 defeats.

With 18 games gone and another 18 to come for the two sides, not much separates them in the table with Derry one point clear of the Hoops.

The Candystripes might have hoped that they could take advantage of Shamrock Rovers' slip-up at Cork City where the reigning champions had three players sent off on Friday night.

However, Derry also ended up losing on the road to what had been an out-of-sorts Sligo Rovers on Saturday in what proved to be a missed opportunity.

Speaking on this week's RTÉ Soccer Podcast, former UCD and Shamrock Rovers midfielder Paul Corry and ex-Dundalk striker David McMillan highlighted the small issues that they feel are holding back the two contenders

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"I'm sure Shamrock Rovers are shocked that they're only still one point behind Derry considering how many points they've dropped," said Corry.

"And I'm sure Ruaidhri (Higgins) was thinking at the back of his mind that this was maybe not a must-win game but a huge opportunity to just extend that gap between themselves and Shamrock Rovers, particularly with the form that Derry have shown in the last number of weeks and the form that Sligo have shown going a bit in reverse.

"You felt Derry would have had enough going