College pull off an unlikely coup

UCD added to their growing reputation and opened up the championship race with an energetic win over an off-colour Cork City at Turner's Cross yesterday. Cork still lead the table by one point, but UCD's success will give encouragement to the other championship hopefuls for it served to underline the fact that City can be vulnerable as well.

UCD's hero was their 17-year-old centre forward Glen Fitzpatrick who claimed both their goals. This Leaving Certificate student made his league debut in recent weeks against Shamrock Rovers and his impact yesterday, on a game that only came to life in the second half, was considerable.

Both his goals came after Cork's defence made bad errors. The first arrived after just 27 minutes, centre back Declan Daly failing in his attempt to shield the ball as it ran towards the endline as Fitzpatrick succeeded in stealing possession. Although his first shot was cleared off the line by Derek Coughlan, Fitzpatrick regained possession to score confidently.

The second goal was the result of a disastrous error by Cork under-21 international Coughlan. With time and in space after 68 minutes, he delayed his clearance, was robbed by substitute Eoin Benis and was then left helpless as Benis's pass took goalkeeper Noel Mooney out of the game and left Fitzpatrick to tap in to an open goal.

Not surprisingly, Cork manager Dave Barry was disappointed in his side's performance. "I expect we'll be reading in the papers of Cork's Christmas gifts to UCD," he said, "but fair play to them, they took advantage of our mistakes. We expected a difficult match and we missed (Patsy) Freyne in midfield, but I cannot be happy with that sort of performance."

UCD always worked extremely hard and with Ciaran Kavanagh, Tony McLaughlin and John Martin in sparkling form in midfield, they never allowed Cork settle into their stride. UCD's success in defence owed much to the tenacity of Tony McDonnell at right back, for he combined with McLaughlin to insure that the dangerous Ollie Cahill was never allowed to make an impact. Overall UCD were good value for their win. In fact, they scored all three goals because Cork's only success came after 74 minutes when UCD centre back Aidan Lynch headed the ball into his own net under pressure from Pat Morley as the centre forward attempted to get to a cross from Colin O'Brien.

"We hit a good run of form at the right time," said UCD manager Theo Dunne afterwards, "and we knew we had an outside chance here. I'm delighted with the win, but I still believe Cork are capable of going on to win the title. They will be very hard to knock off their perch."

Cork will have to do without Freyne, who missed yesterday's match because of 'flu, for the next three matches while he serves a period of suspension, but with O'Brien back in action after missing eight months due to injury, the game was not without its compensations for the disappointed league leaders.

Cork City: Mooney; O'Donoghue, Coughlan, Daly, Cronin, Flanagan, Herrick, Hill, Cahill, Dobbs, Caulfield. Subs: Hartigan for Dobbs (38 mins), O'Brien for O'Donoghue (46 mins), Morley for Cronin (63 mins).

UCD: Ryan, McDonnell, Delaney, Lynch, Mahon, McLaughlin, Kavanagh, Martin, Dunne, O'Byrne, Fitzpatrick. Sub: Benis for Kavanagh (66 mins).

Referee: H Byrne (Dublin).