Sligo Rovers 2 (Puri 45, Keating 90) Limerick 3 (Duggan 5, O’Conor 27, Faherty 58)

Limerick pulled off the great escape with a fully deserved 3-2 defeat of Sligo Rovers at the Showgrounds last night.

Bottom of the table for most of the season, the Munster men climbed above Drogheda United at the crucial time to earn themselves a promotion-relegation play-off against Finn Harps next week.

Goals from Shane Duggan, Paul O’Conor and Vinny Faherty secured Limerick’s sixth win in the last 12 games, despite Sander Puri and Ruairi Keating striking for Rovers.

Limerick fans were lighting flares and singing ‘we are staying up’ just five minutes in as Limerick worked a short corner to Duggan at the edge of the box, and the captain drove the ball into bottom corner.

They almost got a second ten minutes later as Ian Turner curled a free-kick around the wall but Richard Brush dived to make a brilliant save.

Sixty seconds later, Freddy Hall made a great stop to deny Corcoran from the penalty spot, after the Dubliner was fouled just inside the area by Patrick Kanyuka.

The game swung end-to-end and Sean Russell forced Brush into another diving save on 20 minutes.

The second goal was coming, however, and duly arrived on 27 minutes, when Shane Tracy smashed a long-range effort off the crossbar, and O’Conor followed in to head home from close range at the second attempt.

Puri pulled one back on the stroke of half-time, as he finished well from close range after some good work by Keith Ward.

And substitute Keating got a second at the death, but it was Limerick’s night.

Sligo: Brush, Cretaro, Keane, Peers, Ledwith, Puri, Cawley, Ward (Armstrong 68), Myrie-Williams, Nielsen (Elding 68), Corcoran (Keating 68).

Limerick: Hall, Kelly, Kanyuka, Williams, Tracy, Clarke (Guedje 88), Duggan, O'Conor, Russell, Turner, Faherty (Mann 83).

Referee: T Connolly.