Cork City maintain record

A late penalty from Kelvin Flanagan made it five wins out of five for Cork City to put them three points clear at the top of the Premier Division table. It was certainly not achieved in the fashion they would have liked, with one of their less convincing displays of the season, at Belfield, yesterday.

Striker Gerald Dobbs outwitted UCD's young central defender, Clive Delaney, to run through on to Greg O'Halloran's pass and Delaney tripped him as he tried to recover. Flanagan sent Barry Ryan the wrong way from the spot with his fourth successful penalty of the season.

Cork defended sluggishly in the first-half and were lucky not to have been a couple of goals down by the break.

UCD started well and their captain Aidan Lynch forced an early save from Cork keeper Noel Mooney from Mick O'Byrne's fifth minute free-kick. Minutes later O'Byrne failed to punish a mistake by Derek Coughlan when lobbing wide.

Dave Barry admonished his team at the interval and they came far more into the game after the break; Mark Herrick tested Ryan with their first effort on target on 50 minutes.

Five minutes later Ryan did well to scramble away a powerful header from Herrick following Flanagan's corner.

But UCD remained well in the game and O'Byrne beat three players only to shoot over the top on the hour.

Cork, who enjoyed perhaps the better possession in the secondhalf, got their noses in front from the penalty spot on 81 minutes and held on as Ciaran Kavanagh was deprived of an equaliser in the final minute by a good save from Mooney.

"We were a half a yard off the pace of the game in the first-half," said Barry. "I told them at halftime I wanted a bit of impetus into our game and we were much better, playing quite well. It was our least effective performance of the season but we're more than happy leaving Belfield with three points."

UCD: Ryan; McDonnell, Mahon, Delaney; McLoughlin, Kavanagh, Lynch, Dunne, McAuley; O'Byrne, Bennis.

Cork City: Mooney; O'Halloran, Daly, Coughlan, Cronin; Flanagan, Herrick, Bary-Murphy, Cahill; Kabia, Dobbs. Sub: Hartigan for Kabia (73 mins.).

Referee: R O'Hanlon (Waterford).