Bray battle back for deserved draw

Cork City 1 Bray Wanderers 1: Bray Wanderers secured a vital and much deserved share of the spoils at Turner's Cross last night when they came from a goal behind to draw with Cork City.

After going behind 37 minutes into the contest Bray never yielded to what at times was ferocious Cork pressure, and struck with deadly accuracy to level proceedings with just 10 minutes of the contest left.

In truth it was no more than Bray deserved and Cork can only blame themselves for a myriad of missed chances, in particular in the first half.

Indeed, after eight minutes City should have opened their home account for the season when Liam Kearney got on the end of a Neal Fenn cross.

After skipping past the challenges of two defenders Fenn chipped to the far post, where, all alone, Kearney looked destined to find the back of the net with his header. It was not to be though as Chris O'Connor somehow managed to get across the goal and get a hand to the ball to deny the City winger.

Committed to attack, Cork were immediately caught on the counterattack when Colm Tresson was put through, but his shot hit the side netting.

Cork were well on top in terms of possession and again it took the excellent O'Connor to stop the home side when he got a hand to an Alan Bennett header.

Cork were not to be denied, however, and they finally opened their account through Behan.

Behan was in the side only because Kevin Doyle was on international duty with the Irish Under-21 side, but he repaid his manager's faith on 37 minutes.

Danny Murphy launched a long ball from inside his own half and with O'Connor racing from his goal-line Behan showed his bravery to win the race, stretch out his leg and steer the ball into the net, much to the delight of the 6,224 crowd.

After turning over a goal to the good, Cork needed more of the same, but they stagnated somewhat after the opening five minutes of the half.

There was a revival after 63 minutes when Billy Woods crossed for Fenn and while his effort did find the net it was ruled out for offside.

As the second half progressed Bray were coming more into the tie and while clear-cut goal chances were few the continued indecision and uncomfortable look of Cork's defensive set-up always gave the visitors hope.

That hope was shown to be well-founded with 10 minutes of the contest remaining.

A throw-in from Ryan was flicked into the path of substitute Stephen Fox and, with the Cork marking non-existent, he drove a long-range effort to the far corner of the net for the equaliser.

It was a body blow to Cork and while they did threaten on a couple of occasions in the final minutes they never looked like restoring the lead, and so Bray left Turner's Cross with a deserved draw.

CORK CITY: Devine; Horgan, Murphy, Murray, Bennett, Woods, Gamble, O'Callaghan, Kearney, Fenn, Behan. Subs: Long and O'Halloran for Gamble and Fenn (86 mins), O'Donovan for Kearney (88 mins).

BRAY WANDERERS: O'Connor; Tresson, Long, Lynch, Clarke, O'Reilly, Ryan, Keogh, Zayed, McGrory, Dunne. Subs: Fox for McGrory (53 mins), James for Dunne ( 64 mins), Kelch for Long (75 mins).

Referee: P Tuite (Dublin).