By Dave Donnelly at Tallaght Stadium
Shamrock Rovers 3-0 Cork City
Damien Duff made his Shamrock Rovers debut in tonight's SSE Airtricity league clash as Pat Fenlon's side easily beat Cork City at Tallaght Stadium.
Man of the match Gavin Brennan opened the scoring for the Hoops with a first-half header, before Danny North and Brandon Miele added second-half strikes, and Fenlon's side were full value for the winning margin in a game they controlled from the outset.
A second defeat in four days, meanwhile, puts a potentially fatal dent in City's title aspirations for the season, and manager John Caulfield will be left to rue the passive manner in which his team were dismantled by the quicker and more hungry Hoops.
Fenlon named an unchanged line-up to the one that coasted to a 3-1 victory in Longford on Friday, meaning Duff again had to settle for a bench spot.
Caulfield responded to the surprise 3-2 defeat to bottom-placed Limerick at Turner's Cross by bringing in long-term absentee John Kavanagh and Ross Gaynor for Colin Healy and injured captain John Dunleavy.
The visitors started the brighter as first Gaynor – playing in an unfamiliar position behind striker Mark O'Sullivan – and then Steven Beattie had shots blocked in the opening minutes.
Cork goalkeeper Mark McNulty pulled off a terrific stop to deny Max Blanchard after the Frenchman rose unopposed to head six yards out, and he had to depend on the woodwork shortly after when Brennan found a pocket of space and struck the base of the post from outside the box.
A searching long ball from the goalkeeper almost played in Karl Sheppard, but the former Rovers striker was denied by a good covering tackle by Dave Webster, and Beattie really should have done better when he seized on an errant pass from Gary McCabe, but his effort was brilliantly saved by Barry Murphy in the Hoops goal.
McCabe did well to scramble Alan Bennett's goalbound header off the line, after the former Brentford player found himself unmarked from a corner.
Brennan did finally get the reward his sparkling first-half performance deserved when, after good work from Brandon Miele, Luke Byrne had too much time to dig out a left-wing cross and the Drogheda native leapt elegantly to glance the ball into the top corner of McNulty's net.
Cork rallied in the period after the goal, with Sheppard, Buckley and Beattie all having efforts to null the deficit, but it was Rovers who finished the half on the front foot as a McCabe cross whizzed past the post.
Eleven minutes into the second half, Rovers secured the points as Drennan latched on to Conor Kenna's clever ball over the top of the Cork defence.
The former Aston Villa man's cross from the byline found North, and the Englishman's diving header flashed past McNulty at his near post.
Caulfield introduced Darren Dennehy and debutant Danny O'Connell in an attempt to alter the flow of the game, but despite committing numbers to attack, Cork were struggling to create clear-cut chances and Rovers continued to look the more likely to add to the scoreline.
Drennan was magnificent in a deep-lying role, frequently retreated into midfield to pull the strings of attack, while McCabe worked tirelessly alongside Blanchard to ensure he had a constant supply of possession.
Caulfield had Liam Kearney and John O'Flynn on the bench but opted to make Colin Healy his final substitution, but the game had long since ended as a contest when Miele latched on to substitute Gareth McCaffrey's sublime pass to stab home and secure a deserved 3-0 win.
Shamrock Rovers: Barry Murphy; Simon Madden, Conor Kenna, David Webster, Luke Byrne; Max Blanchard, Gary McCabe, Gavin Brennan, Brandon Miele (Damien Duff 88); Mikey Drennan, Danny North (Gareth McCaffrey 84).
Cork City: Mark McNulty; John Kavanagh (Colin Healy 78), Dan Murray, Alan Bennett (Darren Dennehy 61), Kevin O'Connor; Liam Miller, Garry Buckley, Ross Gaynor (Danny O'Connell); Stephen Beattie, Karl Sheppard, Mark O'Sullivan.
Referee: Tomás Connolly (Dublin).
