Cork City 0 Drogheda Utd 0:IT WAS billed, rather cruelly, as the battle of the Examinerships, but last night's clash at Turner's Cross proved to be a scoreless draw that seemed almost inevitable given all that's occurred.

The build-up had nothing to do with football. The Drogheda players were told yesterday they will be paid only 30 per cent of their wages until the end of the season. Office staff at United Park will learn their fate on Monday.

But they showed as much bottle for this battle as their opponents, who have all but left the bad days behind them. There are, however, tough choices ahead for the Leesiders. With a good proportion of the Cork squad out of contract at the end of the season, a tighter budget, understood to be as little as €18,000 a week, will mean smaller contracts.

Despite it all, it was a bright, if scoreless, first half. Chances fell to Pat Sullivan and Timmy Kiely for Cork in the fourth and 14th minutes, while, for United, Graham Gartland had a header cleared off the line in the 32nd minute and Eamon Zayed couldn't beat Mark McNulty one-on-one in the 40th.

A wasted Alan O'Connor opportunity 30 seconds later prepared Cork to restart stronger. But they never managed to capitalise and they spent the entire second half trying to break down a stubborn Drogheda backline to no avail.

CORK CITY: M McNulty; N Horgan, D Murray (capt), P Sullivan, Danny Murphy; T Kiely, J Gamble, Darren Murphy, D Ryan; A O'Connor, L Dudfield. Sub: D Behan for Kiely (68).

DROGHEDA UNITED: J Ewings; M Clarke, G Gartland, J Tambouras, O Cahill; S Robinson, S Ristila, P Keegan, F Kuduzovic; D O'Brien (capt), E Zayed. Sub: S Williams for Kuduzovic (73).

Referee:Derek Tomney (Dublin).