Bohemians 0 Cork City 1 | Airtricity League

Bohemians 0 Cork City 1

Sunday, 05 April 2009 22:01

Cork City showed their title credentials with an impressive win over double champions, Bohemians, at Dalymount Park.

New Signing Davin O’Neill was the man that netted the precious winner for the Leesiders and on the balance of the second half Paul Doolin’s men deserved their three points.

They have inflicted a first defeat of the campaign on the champions and on this evidence the race to the title this season could well be a four horse race with Derry City and St. Pat’s also in the mix.

Pat Fenlon won’t be miffed at last night defeat, however, as his side bounced back from an early home defeat to the Saints last season by going on a 20-plus game unbeaten run that saw them sweep to the title.

Doolin and Fenlon have delivered five Premier Division titles in six seasons between them so those who were in attendance at Dalymount could have expected some real quality to be on show.

But whether it was due to the conditions, it had been raining in Dublin in the hours leading up to kick-off, or the fact that both sets of players endeavoured to cancel each other out, there was precious little to write about in the opening 45 minutes.

Joe Gamble tried to provide some impetus for the visitors and his measured through ball for the Latvian, Guntars Silagailis, was a welcome relief just before the break from the head tennis and long ball stuff that had gone before.

It had Silagailis scampering through on goal and Cork’s new signing, who had incidentally scored three goals in his last two games, got into position for a cross despite the attention of the Bohs captain, Owen Heary.

But with the ever alert Brian Shelley covering the far post another one of Cork’s new signings, O’Neill, was unable to provide the final touch to what would have been a shock lead for City.

That was the only real move of merit even though the home side had the ball in the net just past the half hour mark. Anto Murphy’s cross had gone out, however, before it reached the boot of Glen Crowe and his volley didn’t stand.

The second period couldn’t have been as bad as the first and thankfully a 52nd minute goal provided the perfect tonic for an improvement. Unfortunately for the majority of the crowd, however, it was the visitors that snatched that lead.

O’Neill didn’t get the chance in the first half and that was probably a good thing for the double champions, given the quality of his finish when found by Denis Behan just outside the penalty area.

The former Cobh Rambler had much to do, but he didn’t shirk the responsibility when unleashing a low left foot drive that had Brian Murphy beaten. Indeed O’Neill deserved even more credit as it was his flick-on that sent Behan in behind Jason McGuinness in the lead up to the strike.

It looked like that would be enough right until injury time when substitute Jason Byrne’s volley looked as if it had nestled in the net. But amid celebrations from the home faithful, it transpired that the ball had in fact hit the stanchion behind the goal and that was that.

Bohemians: B Murphy; Shelley, Heary, McGuinness, Rossiter; A Murphy (Byrne, 58), Cronin, Keegan, Brennan (Carey, 73); Ndo, Crowe.

Cork City: Connor; Sullivan (Horgan, 72), O’Halloran, Murray, D Murphy; O’Neill (Lordan, 92), Gamble, Healy, Dennehy; Behan (Kudozovic, 63), Silagailis.

Ref: D Hancock (Dublin).

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