Goals from Serdar Dursun and Daniel Steininger were enough to heap even more pressure on 1. FC Nürnberg, as they fell to a 2-1 defeat against Greuther Fürth.
Alois Schwartz will be hoping that he can get things back on track at the weekend, with Guido Burgstaller's late goal proving too little, too late.
Team news
Schwartz made two changes for the must win game, as the injured Lukas Mühl and Enis Alushi were replaced by Even Hovland and Ondrej Petrak. For Stefan Ruthenbeck and the Shamrocks, he recalled Veton Berisha, Dursun and Sebastian Freis for Benedikt Kirsch, Zlatko Tripic and Ante Vukusic.
Shamrocks strike on the break
Laszlo Sepsi, a steady performer by all accounts, almost made a catastrophic mistake early on when he hacked his clearance straight at Berisha but the striker was caught off guard and couldn't make the chance count. In such a heated and high-tempo game, an early yellow card was inevitable and Nicolai Rapp was booked after just six minutes.
Despite the early scare, the hosts were by far the better side in the half hour that followed and were fairly dominant. Edgar Salli picked up where he left off against VfL Bochum and was a constant menace throughout. His crosses were cleared just in time, or came slightly too soon for his incoming team-mates.
The closest Nürnberg came was, unsurprisingly, from a Kevin Möhwald set-piece. His corner was whipped in with real pace to the six-yard box and, with Balazs Megyeri consigned to his line with the bodies in front of him, Tim Matavz rattled his header against the crossbar.
Then, completely against the run of play, the breakthrough came. Niko Gießelmann's run and cross almost opened the scoring but his effort came back off the bar. Freis was there to gather up the rebound, however, and headed into the middle for Dursun to rifle in from close range and compound FCN's misery before the break.
Burgstaller effort not enough for a point
Things got even worse after the break for the hosts, as Fürth doubled their lead through young Steininger. The midfielder drove forward without challenge as the home midfield had gone walk-about, but he was even more fortunate when his shot deflected off Even Hovland and up, over and in against the stranded Thorsten Kirschbaum.
To their credit, even after the disappointment, Nürnberg didn't give up and battle back in search of something for their fans to cheer. Matavz and Tim Leibold were both brilliantly denied by Megyeri, while Cedric Teuchert and Hanno Behrens both joined in during the period of dominance. They got no reward for their efforts, however.
After both sides traded late chances, the final kick of the game brought about a home goal. Burgstaller got free in the area and had enough time to fire in off Khaled Narey. The damage had been done, though, and it was enough to take the Shamrocks to fifth. Nürnberg, on the other hand, are bottom.