Victory not enough for Cork

They came in their thousands looking for a little miracle and left, chastened in the knowledge that even in football there are limits to notions of grandeur.

Cork City, without ever aspiring to brilliance, delivered on their part of the equation which would have returned the championship trophy to the club for the first time in six years, when two goals from Pat Morley and another by Colin O'Brien demolished ragged Rovers.

Sadly, for them, however, the drama being acted out, 160 miles away at Richmond Park, ensured that when the day's business was done and the mathematics had defined the big winners and losers, that was little more than an irritating statistic.

As we suspected, the title was won and lost in Inchicore a fortnight ago and despite the goodwill pouring down on them from the terraces at Turner's Cross yesterday, City occasionally betrayed the tell-tale signs of a team which realised it had blown its chances.

For just a couple of exhilarating minutes approaching half time, the crowd sensed that there might indeed, be cause for a second Leeside celebration in 24 hours when word spread like a bush fire through the ground that Bray had taken the lead against St Patrick's. Sombre men were seen to embrace total strangers and the novel chant of "One-Nil to the Wanderers", rang around the ground.

For once, however, the bush telegraph had got it wrong and in a sense, we all felt diminished by the error.

A cruel hoax by an expatriate from Bray or a cunning part of Dave Barry's match strategy to persuade his players to move up a gear? We were still trying to figure it out during the break but for a couple of minutes at least, Turner's Cross throbbed to the excitement of a great escape in the making.

The effect when reality returned, was rather like a punctured balloon. The Shed fell silent, the chanting stopped temporarily on the terraces and save for the odd derisory roar at the bedraggled opposition, the minds of the masses were on what might have been.

Rovers, ill fitted by history for the job of making up the numbers, were vastly disappointing. Paul Whelan and Terry Palmer defended diligently at the back and Jason Colwell, deployed directly in front of them for most of the game, ensured that neither of Cork's central midfielders Patsy Freyne or Mark Herrick were ever allowed to run directly at them.

But with Marc Kenny suffering in the sun and Matt Britton seldom able to match the pass with the runner, the front men, Jason Sherlock and Gareth O'Connor were little more than agitated onlookers for much of the game.

Barry, backing courage with conviction, left his top scorer Kelvin Flanagan out of the team to facilitate the inclusion of Colin O'Brien whose arrival as a replacement, had done so much to dismiss Shelbourne the previous week.

On this occasion, however, O'Brien's skills were largely dormant on a day when even a mature artist of the pedigree of Patsy Freyne, encountered problems in coming to terms with a hard playing surface and a ball that was all too often, in the air.

"I am proud of my team," said Barry. "I wanted them to set up a day like today and ensure that the title went down to the wire. St Pat's are a good team and I congratulate them. But the manner in which my players took them on head to head in three exciting games this season, augers well for this club".

Cork City: Mooney; Daly, Hill, Cronin, Barry Murphy; O'Brien, Freyne, Herrick, Cahill; Dobbs, Morley. Subs: Caulfield (68 mins) for Dobbs, Harrington (84 mins) for Mooney.

Shamrock Rovers: Horgan, Tracey, Palmer, Whelan, Woods: Britton, Colwell, Kenny, O'Neill, O'Connor, Sherlock. Sub: Brazil (67 mins) for O'Neill.

Referee: H Byrne (Dublin).