The current form of both sides, and a distinct lack of any real passion, produced one of the drabbest scoreless draws you could wish to see and a result that was of little benefit to either team.
UCD haven't won in the league since they beat Bohemians at Belfield on November 16th, while Rovers' promising season had suffered severe damage on the back of four straight defeats, including two cup exits.
Rovers manager Mick Byrne, however, was content to look on the brighter side of a day that began with the birth of his first son in the early hours of the morning. "We played far better than we had done over the last couple of weeks and we looked stronger throughout the team," said Byrne.
"We talked alot during the week about the cup defeat in Athlone and I felt that if we'd played like we did against UCD against Athlone, we would have hammered them."
As it was, Rovers' European ambitions remain largely intact, though they were left to rue missing two excellent chances in a second-half that would have given them the win to put them third in the table.
Tony Cousins, Rovers topscorer, was unfortunate in seeing his header from Matt Britton's free-kick scrape the crossbar in added time at the end, while earlier in the half Aaron Lynch would have expected to make more of a free header from Paul Whelan's cross which looped tamely into the hands of UCD goalkeeper Seamus Kelly.
UCD welcomed back Jason Sherlock, only hours off a flight from Boston, for the last 13 minutes, and almost made an immediate impact: Rovers goalkeeper, Robbie Forde, got the better of Sherlock as he raced onto a through-ball from skipper Aidan Lynch's flick.
UCD may argue they should have had a penalty when Richie Purdy appeared to handle as Ken Kilmurrary attempted to flip the ball over him in the 62nd minute, but Cork referee Tom Tully waved away their claims.
Their best chance then went abegging on 75 minutes when John Martin managed to get in behind Purdy onto Declan Fitzgerald's cross, only to blaze his side-footed volley well over the top.
The first-half only came to life in the 15 minutes or so before the break.
It was 28 minutes before we had a shot on target, when Kelly got down well well to make a comfortable save from Mark O'Neill's 20yard drive.
Kelly then provided the main spectacle of the first-half six minutes later when he parried superbly from Cousins after he'd got in behind the defence to shoot after Paul Stokes had flicked on Paul Whelan's long ball out of defence.
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