St Patrick's Athletic - 0 Cork City - 3: Cork's fine season continued at Inchicore last night as a comprehensive victory saw Pat Dolan's men moving to third in the table.

St Pat's have not been firing on all cylinders on the home front and last night they were punished by some clinical finishing by the visitors.

As a result of last night's win Cork are now just eight points off the lead and, with a healthy enough bank balance as a result of their Intertoto Cup excursions, things are looking up for the Munster outfit.

Despite playing their fourth game in a nine-day period which had already seen them lose back- to-back fixtures to UCD and Drogheda, Cork looked surprisingly fresh and the early goal settled the nerves.

It came on 11 minutes and was the product of good work by their two forwards. John O'Flynn pulled the ball back for Neil Fenn and his first-time strike found the top corner.

St Pat's, with former Dublin City managers John McDonnell and John Toal pulling the strings from the sideline, had chances after that, with Colm Foley heading over and then an ambitious effort from Philip Sheppard just cleared the crossbar.

Although Fenn hit the woodwork for Cork on 40 minutes, St Pat's were still well in contention, with Aidan O'Keeffe prominent down the left-hand side.

But he was left to rue an early chance after the break and Cork duly killed the game off after that with goals from Alan Bennett (61) and Kevin Doyle (77).

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Adamson; Quigley, Foley, Maguire, Bell; Sheppard (Knight, 35 mins), Casey (B Prenderville, 73 mins) , Fahey, O'Keeffe; Smith (Khebyr, 73 mins), Dunne.

CORK CITY: Devine; Lordan, Murray, Bennett, Murphy; Doyle (Woods, 89), O'Brien, O'Callaghan (Gamble, 78 mins), Kearney; Fenn, O'Flynn (Behan, 75 mins).

Referee: I Stoke (Dublin)