League Report: Cork City 1 - 1 Sligo Rovers

View a series of photos from the game by Matt Kirkham

A great game and late, late drama were on show for the 4,035 fans who visited Turner’s Cross on Friday evening to see Cork City and Sligo Rovers play out an entertaining 1-1 draw.

Rovers looked to be taking all three points back to The Showgrounds with an 88th minute opener, but Billy Dennehy rescued a point deep into injury-time when he stepped up to convert a penalty. With just three minutes of the game played, Cork City were forced into a change as Garry Buckley suffered an injury when challenging Gary Rogers in the air, requiring lengthy treatment on the pitch.

Rovers enjoyed a brighter start, but Mark O’Sullivan had the game’s first real chance after 20 minutes when he found himself in space in the box, one-on-one with Gary Rogers, but the striker skied his effort. Eight minutes later, an unmarked Aaron Greene could have headed the visitors into the lead when he got his head onto a Joseph Ndo cross, but his effort proved tame.

Billy Dennehy, involved in many of Cork’s counter-attacks, found himself in on goal moments later against Rogers who was able to deny the former Shamrock Rovers man.

As the half drew to a close, Cork had a couple of half chances through Liam Kearney and Iarfhlaith Davoren, but somehow both sides would go into the half-time break without a goal despite having seven minutes of injury-time.

Six minutes into the second-half, Danny Ledwith forced Mark McNulty into action with a well hit strike from range. David Cawley would then shoot narrowly wide of the target from the resulting corner.

Youngster Rob Lehane was introduced shortly after the hour mark and may well have just given John Caulfield something to think about when he’s picking next week’s starting XI, causing The Bit O’Red all sorts of problems over a ten minute period, but unfortunately for Lehane his efforts could not yield a goal.

Kearney forced Rogers into his finest save of the evening when his venomous strike across the face of goal was quickly parried wide by the Sligo net minder.

With two minutes remaining, Rovers finally broke the deadlock, however, the goal scorer remains up for debate as the ball eventually found its way into the back of the net after a bit of hectic pinball in the six yard area. The goal, for now, has been awarded to Kieran Djilali.

There was time for further drama in injury-time as Cork were awarded a last gasp penalty following a foul by Kalen Spillane. Dennehy stepped up to take the spot-kick and was able to beat the outstretched arm of Rogers, finding the bottom left corner to see the game end with a share of the spoils.

Cork City: Mark McNulty; Brian Lenihan, Dan Murray, John Dunleavy, Iarfhlaith Davoren (John Kavanagh 46); Darren Murphy, Garry Buckley (Dave O’Leary (Rob Lehane 60)), Gearoid Morrisey, Liam Kearney, Billy Dennehy; Mark O’Sullivan.
Subs not used: Matt Gledhill (gk), Kevin Mulcahy, Andy O’Connell, Ian Turner.

Booked: None.

Sligo Rovers: Gary Rogers; Alan Keane, Jeff Henderson, Evan McMillan, Danny Ledwith (Danny North 64); David Cawley, Joseph Ndo, Paul O’Conor (Sean Maguire 82), Kieran Djilali (Kalen Spillane 90), Ross Gaynor; Aaron Greene.
Subs not used: Richard Brush (gk), Jake Dykes, Eric Odhiambo, Jordan Loftus.

Booked: O'Conor (81).

Referee: Paul McLaughlin

Attendance: 4,035

Extratime.ie Man of the Match: Kieran Djilali (Sligo Rovers)