Longford Town 0-3 Cork City
Mark O’Sullivan came off the bench to make a major impact as Cork City delivered a seventh straight league win to consolidate second place in the Premier Division table.
The result was harsh on Longford, who remain bottom of the table, and without a win now since the opening night of the season. They had teenage defender Tristan Noack-Hofman harshly sent off in the first half before which they looked relatively comfortable.
While the first half performance from Cork was underwhelming, the second was better with the result, and clean sheet - their fifth in six games, setting up nicely Friday’s visit of champions Dundalk to Turner’s Cross.
Struggling Longford, conscious of their 6-0 drubbing at Cork back in March, started with five at the back, and weren’t far off the ideal start with a chance inside two minutes.
Striker Lee Duffy, scorer of a cracking goal in the FAI Cup in Waterford last week, cut in from the left to fire a powerful shot over the bar.
Cork settled and enjoyed plenty of the ball, with Sean Maguire shooting straight into the arms of Paul Skinner before Gavan Holohan sliced badly wide from Kevin O’Connor’s pull back.
The visitors then wasted the best chance of the first half on 23 minutes.
Steven Beattie put O’Connor’s cross back across goal for Stephen Dooley but the winger mis-hit his attempted shot; it dropped to Alan Bennett who planted his header over Skinner’s crossbar.
Having held their own, Longford were dealt a blow on 34 minutes when 17-year-old central defender Noack-Horman was sent off for a foul on Beattie, his second yellow-card offence.
A brave block on the edge of the area by Mark Rossiter on Bennett’s shot from skipper Greg Bolger’s resulting free kick kept Cork out.
Pat Flynn then got his body in the way of Dooley’s powerful drive after a mistake by Philip Gannon gifted the Cork player the ball in the box.
Following O’Sullivan’s introduction at the break, it was pretty much one-way traffic from the resumption with Cork’s pressure finally telling on 57 minutes.
McNulty’s clearance was flicked on by O’Sullivan and Maguire pounced on a miskick by Rossiter to flick a right-foot lob past Skinner to the net.
Skinner then kept Town in the game with terrific saves from O’Sullivan and then Maguire.
Once again, Skinner was there to make perhaps the stop of the game from O’Sullivan before the Cork striker doubled the lead on 73 minutes when meeting Kevin O’Connor’s free kick with a near post header.
O’Connor and Maguire then combined to set up Dooley to drill home seven minutes from time.
Longford Town: Paul Skinner; Jamie Mulhall, Pat Flynn, Mark Rossiter (Rhys Gorman 75), Tristan Noack-Hofman, Conor Powell; Philip Gannon, Kealan Dillon; Lee Duffy (Josh O’Hanlon 65), Kaleem Simon (Don Cowan 70), David O’Sullivan.
Cork City: Mark McNulty; Colin Healy (Mark O’Sullivan h-t), Michael McSweeney, Alan Bennett (Ian Turner 78), Kevin O’Connor; Gearoid Morrissey, Greg Bolger (Garry Buckley 61); Steven Beattie, Gavan Holohan, Stephen Dooley; Sean Maguire.
Referee: Derek Tomney (Dublin)
