Soccer

Cork City go to town on hosts Athlone

Liam Kearney (centre) scored the opening goal for Cork City against hosts Athlone Town in their Premier Division clash at Lissywoollen. Photograph: Lorraine O’Sullivan/Inpho
Liam Kearney (centre) scored the opening goal for Cork City against hosts Athlone Town in their Premier Division clash at Lissywoollen. Photograph: Lorraine O’Sullivan/Inpho
Fri Mar 28 2014 - 22:43

ATHLONE TOWN 0 CORK CITY 3

Goals from Mark O'Sullivan, Billy Dennehy and Liam Kearney gave Cork City a comfortable win over the hosts last night and set up a tantalising top-of- the-table clash with Shamrock Rovers next weekend.

Sloppy clearance
The home side were chasing their first points of the new season and competed well early on. However, a sloppy clearance allowed Dennehy to place a measured cross in to Mark O'Sullivan for the opener after 43 minutes.

Immediately after the interval the provider turned finisher as he slid home the second from close range, again capitalising on some hesitancy in the centre of the Athlone defence.

Cork sat back and absorbed the pressure with ease from then on and while they looked sharp on the break and created several half chances with quick passing moves down the flanks, their third goal came from another long ball forward, well finished by Kearney with 15 minutes left.
ATHLONE TOWN : Skinner; Dillon, McMahon, Prendergast, S Byrne (Sweeney 53); A Byrne; Rusk (D Brennan 81), S Brennan, O'Brien, Marks (Hughes 81); Gorman.
CORK CITY : McNulty; Lenihan, Murray, D Dennehy, Dunleavy; Healy; Kavanagh (Kearney HT), Morrissey, B Dennehy, Buckley (O'Leary 66); O'Sullivan (Turner 80).
Referee: Rob Harvey