IT’S HARD TO beat Cork City on a sunny Friday evening and Shamrock Rovers found the same to be true of Leeside’s football team, particularly when they have a three-man advantage.
A late Ruairi Keating goal earned City the biggest three points of their season so far but that told only about a quarter of the story as a first-half red card for Richie Towell, followed by two more in the space of three second-half minutes for Johnny Kenny and Seán Hoare, made the champions’ task on Leeside an almost comically impossible one.
Even while down to eight, Rovers equipped themselves well: they were only a lick of paint away from taking the lead before the onslaught by their relegation-threatened hosts’ finally paid dividends, Keating striding onto a perfect cross by Kevin Custovic and sending Turner’s Cross into orbit.
As City and their fans breathed a sigh of relief at full-time, referee Seán Grant and his assistants were harangued by breathless Rovers players who were left incredulous by the reality that they had spent the final half hour with three fewer players.
Stephen Bradley will doubtless be proud of their resistance, which lasted until the 85th minute, but he will lament the fact that his side have handed Derry City a chance to move four points clear atop the SSE Aitricity League table when they host Sligo Rovers tomorrow night.
City, too, deserve credit not only for their win but for the fact that they proved so hard to break down even for the 37 minutes in which it was 11 versus 11.
Back-to-back home wins have moved them nine points clear of UCD at the bottom of the table and they’re now just four shy of Sligo in eighth.
On a scorcher of an evening at The Cross, there were more tepid beginnings than the madness that followed: it took nine minutes before either side had an attempt on goal.
City brought enough heat in midfield during the early exchanges to keep Rovers at the gate before Richie Towell’s speculative 25-yard effort skewed well wide off the outside of his right foot.
Three minutes later, as Rovers attempted to crank up the temperature themselves, Towell saw a volley deflected out for a corner from which Gary O’Neill headed well over Jimmy Corcoran’s bar.
That spell of Rovers pressure culminated in a half-chance for Markus Poom, who was fed by Neil Farrugia and found himself in two yards of space at the edge of the area but rasped his half-volley inches over the sticks, stinging the hands of one Shed patron.
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Those successive warning shots saw City lapse into containment mode. Even attackers Ruairi Keating and Tunde Owolabi often spent significant time in their own half and it seemed a tactical shout that they refused to chase Hail Mary balls downfield for fear of City losing their first line of defence when the ball would inevitably come back up the other way.
Consequently, Rovers created nothing further of note in the first half hour and Stephen Bradley’s defence did well to collectively snuff out a rare counter in the other direction when Aaron Bolger brilliantly dispossessed Jack Byrne and sent Owolabi down the right.
That little flirtation with danger seemed to awake Rovers from a bit of a nap: O’Neill and Towell each had long-range efforts which dropped narrowly over City’s bar, and home ‘keeper Corcoran did superbly to deny the latter soon afterwards as Towell attempted to round him in a phonebox.
Corcoran remained upright before denying Towell with his legs, leading to a Rovers corner. O’Neill, this time, had an even better chance than his earlier look and should have done better with his header than to crack it high into The Shed.
That close-range chance was to be Towell’s final act, in possession at least. After City had swung in their first corner up the other end in the 37th minute, referee Sean Grant was alerted to an altercation between the Rovers man and Gordon Walker, which left Walker writhing in pain on the floor inside his own six-yard box.
Towell and Walker wrestled each other to the ground during the corner and, while on the floor, it appeared as though Towell lashed out at the City defender in some shape or form. Rovers and Towell were stunned to see referee Grant brandish a red; Towell appeared to point towards his thigh as if to suggest he had been a victim before he turned assailant.
City, meanwhile, fumed that they weren’t awarded a penalty: the ball had still been in play at the time of Towell’s red-card offence.
With a man advantage and equally boosted by the sugar rush of seeing The Shed serenading one of its longtime nemeses down the tunnel, City seized control of the rest of the half, albeit without creating a clear-cut chance.
Five minutes after the restart, the recovered Walker nodded well over from a corner — City’s first proper attempt at goal — and Leon Pohls threw a cap on a scuffed Ruairi Higgins strike from the edge of the area.
Walker again came close on the hour mark, flicking up a loose ball in the Rovers area and scooping his volley narrowly ever.
Remarkably, in the following three minutes, Rovers conspired to have a further two men sent off.
Johnny Kenny, only on the field five minutes after replacing Rory Gaffney, had already been booked within seconds of his introduction for giving lip to one of the linesmen. He received a second yellow for a stupid, loose challenge in midfield.
Moments later, Seán Hoare followed him down the tunnel after receiving his own second booking, albeit his was far more unfortunate: Hoare went a touch high into a bouncing-ball 50-50 with Barry Coffey, winning the ball but apparently catching the top of Coffey’s foot with his studs in the process. It seemed a harsh yellow.
Waves of City pressure naturally followed these Rovers reds, but for all of the extent to which the champions’ heads had been lost in that three-minute spell of madness, they found a remarkable composure to repel the hosts’ advances for the most part.
City, who had shown a laudable grit in the first half, would have equally been embarrassed by their inability to exploit the hectares of space that were beginning to open up in front of them.
With eight minutes remaining, it was in fact Dan Cleary who had the best chance to break the deadlock to that point, his downward header bouncing agonisingly wide of City’s right-hand post in front of the 300 or so travelling fans.
With five to go, however, the hosts finally sewed together a move of real coherence and quality. In the end, it was the diligent Keating who took the roof off Turner’s Cross as he swept home Kevin Custovic’s pinpoint cross from the right-hand side.
The preciousness of the prospective three points was illustrated by City’s conservatism thereafter: a goal to the good, they mostly opted to play keep-ball even when the very laws of physics would have probitied the exhausted eight men of Rovers from levelling.
Cork City: 20. J. Corcoran, 17. D. Crowley, 28. J. Hakkinen, 18. J. Honohan, 2. G. Walker, 30. J. O’Brien-Whitmarsh, 8. A. Bolger, 10. B. Coffey, 27. K. Custovic, , 9. R. Keating, 7. Owolabi
Subs: 16. D. Crezic, 22. J. O’Donovan, 24. C. Murphy, 33. J. Fitzpatrick, 34. É. Fitzgerald, 35. C. Henderson, 37. D. Moynihan
Shamrock Rovers: 25. L. Pohls, 6. D. Cleary, 4. Roberto Lopes, 3. S. Hoare, 23. N. Farrugia, 19. M. Poom, 16. G. O’Neill, 29. J. Byrne, 17. R. Towell, 11. S. Kavanagh, 20. R. Gaffney
Subs: 2. S. Gannon, 8. R. Finn, 9. A. Greene, 10. G. Burke, 15. Darragh Nugent, 24. J. Kenny, 27. L. Burt, 30. T. Leitis, 34. C. Noonan
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Keating strikes late as Cork City beat eight-man Shamrock Rovers
Cork City 1
Shamrock Rovers 0
IT’S HARD TO beat Cork City on a sunny Friday evening and Shamrock Rovers found the same to be true of Leeside’s football team, particularly when they have a three-man advantage.
A late Ruairi Keating goal earned City the biggest three points of their season so far but that told only about a quarter of the story as a first-half red card for Richie Towell, followed by two more in the space of three second-half minutes for Johnny Kenny and Seán Hoare, made the champions’ task on Leeside an almost comically impossible one.
Even while down to eight, Rovers equipped themselves well: they were only a lick of paint away from taking the lead before the onslaught by their relegation-threatened hosts’ finally paid dividends, Keating striding onto a perfect cross by Kevin Custovic and sending Turner’s Cross into orbit.
As City and their fans breathed a sigh of relief at full-time, referee Seán Grant and his assistants were harangued by breathless Rovers players who were left incredulous by the reality that they had spent the final half hour with three fewer players.
Stephen Bradley will doubtless be proud of their resistance, which lasted until the 85th minute, but he will lament the fact that his side have handed Derry City a chance to move four points clear atop the SSE Aitricity League table when they host Sligo Rovers tomorrow night.
City, too, deserve credit not only for their win but for the fact that they proved so hard to break down even for the 37 minutes in which it was 11 versus 11.
Back-to-back home wins have moved them nine points clear of UCD at the bottom of the table and they’re now just four shy of Sligo in eighth.
On a scorcher of an evening at The Cross, there were more tepid beginnings than the madness that followed: it took nine minutes before either side had an attempt on goal.
City brought enough heat in midfield during the early exchanges to keep Rovers at the gate before Richie Towell’s speculative 25-yard effort skewed well wide off the outside of his right foot.
Three minutes later, as Rovers attempted to crank up the temperature themselves, Towell saw a volley deflected out for a corner from which Gary O’Neill headed well over Jimmy Corcoran’s bar.
That spell of Rovers pressure culminated in a half-chance for Markus Poom, who was fed by Neil Farrugia and found himself in two yards of space at the edge of the area but rasped his half-volley inches over the sticks, stinging the hands of one Shed patron.
Those successive warning shots saw City lapse into containment mode. Even attackers Ruairi Keating and Tunde Owolabi often spent significant time in their own half and it seemed a tactical shout that they refused to chase Hail Mary balls downfield for fear of City losing their first line of defence when the ball would inevitably come back up the other way.
Consequently, Rovers created nothing further of note in the first half hour and Stephen Bradley’s defence did well to collectively snuff out a rare counter in the other direction when Aaron Bolger brilliantly dispossessed Jack Byrne and sent Owolabi down the right.
That little flirtation with danger seemed to awake Rovers from a bit of a nap: O’Neill and Towell each had long-range efforts which dropped narrowly over City’s bar, and home ‘keeper Corcoran did superbly to deny the latter soon afterwards as Towell attempted to round him in a phonebox.
Corcoran remained upright before denying Towell with his legs, leading to a Rovers corner. O’Neill, this time, had an even better chance than his earlier look and should have done better with his header than to crack it high into The Shed.
That close-range chance was to be Towell’s final act, in possession at least. After City had swung in their first corner up the other end in the 37th minute, referee Sean Grant was alerted to an altercation between the Rovers man and Gordon Walker, which left Walker writhing in pain on the floor inside his own six-yard box.
Towell and Walker wrestled each other to the ground during the corner and, while on the floor, it appeared as though Towell lashed out at the City defender in some shape or form. Rovers and Towell were stunned to see referee Grant brandish a red; Towell appeared to point towards his thigh as if to suggest he had been a victim before he turned assailant.
City, meanwhile, fumed that they weren’t awarded a penalty: the ball had still been in play at the time of Towell’s red-card offence.
With a man advantage and equally boosted by the sugar rush of seeing The Shed serenading one of its longtime nemeses down the tunnel, City seized control of the rest of the half, albeit without creating a clear-cut chance.
Five minutes after the restart, the recovered Walker nodded well over from a corner — City’s first proper attempt at goal — and Leon Pohls threw a cap on a scuffed Ruairi Higgins strike from the edge of the area.
Walker again came close on the hour mark, flicking up a loose ball in the Rovers area and scooping his volley narrowly ever.
Remarkably, in the following three minutes, Rovers conspired to have a further two men sent off.
Johnny Kenny, only on the field five minutes after replacing Rory Gaffney, had already been booked within seconds of his introduction for giving lip to one of the linesmen. He received a second yellow for a stupid, loose challenge in midfield.
Moments later, Seán Hoare followed him down the tunnel after receiving his own second booking, albeit his was far more unfortunate: Hoare went a touch high into a bouncing-ball 50-50 with Barry Coffey, winning the ball but apparently catching the top of Coffey’s foot with his studs in the process. It seemed a harsh yellow.
Waves of City pressure naturally followed these Rovers reds, but for all of the extent to which the champions’ heads had been lost in that three-minute spell of madness, they found a remarkable composure to repel the hosts’ advances for the most part.
City, who had shown a laudable grit in the first half, would have equally been embarrassed by their inability to exploit the hectares of space that were beginning to open up in front of them.
With eight minutes remaining, it was in fact Dan Cleary who had the best chance to break the deadlock to that point, his downward header bouncing agonisingly wide of City’s right-hand post in front of the 300 or so travelling fans.
With five to go, however, the hosts finally sewed together a move of real coherence and quality. In the end, it was the diligent Keating who took the roof off Turner’s Cross as he swept home Kevin Custovic’s pinpoint cross from the right-hand side.
The preciousness of the prospective three points was illustrated by City’s conservatism thereafter: a goal to the good, they mostly opted to play keep-ball even when the very laws of physics would have probitied the exhausted eight men of Rovers from levelling.
Cork City: 20. J. Corcoran, 17. D. Crowley, 28. J. Hakkinen, 18. J. Honohan, 2. G. Walker, 30. J. O’Brien-Whitmarsh, 8. A. Bolger, 10. B. Coffey, 27. K. Custovic, , 9. R. Keating, 7. Owolabi
Subs: 16. D. Crezic, 22. J. O’Donovan, 24. C. Murphy, 33. J. Fitzpatrick, 34. É. Fitzgerald, 35. C. Henderson, 37. D. Moynihan
Shamrock Rovers: 25. L. Pohls, 6. D. Cleary, 4. Roberto Lopes, 3. S. Hoare, 23. N. Farrugia, 19. M. Poom, 16. G. O’Neill, 29. J. Byrne, 17. R. Towell, 11. S. Kavanagh, 20. R. Gaffney
Subs: 2. S. Gannon, 8. R. Finn, 9. A. Greene, 10. G. Burke, 15. Darragh Nugent, 24. J. Kenny, 27. L. Burt, 30. T. Leitis, 34. C. Noonan
Referee: Seán Grant
Attendance: 4,240
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LOI mad one