- Stephen Walsh
- Thu, Feb 26 2015
Cobh Ramblers played out a scoreless draw with Cork City in last night’s pre-season friendly at St. Colman’s Park.
It was a game of few scoring chances with both sides seeming happy to share the draw that was priced at 9/5 before the game with some bookmaking chains while for the game to finish with less than a goal was as high as 7/1 before the game.
Two David Browne saves and one smart save from Alan Smith kept the game scoreless but it was a game that won’t live long in any supporter’s memory.
The early stages of the game was a battle between both teams with Shane O’Connor the ex Cork City player impressing with his runs down the wing but the end product was unable to find anybody in the Cobh attack.
Gavin Holohan and Billy Dennehy had two long range shots on twenty minutes but both went wide and over respectively.
Dennehy nearly had the game’s opening goal on 24 minutes when a ball over the top held up in the strong wind favouring City allowed him to shoot one on one with Browne but the keeper saved the shot.
Cobh had their best chance of the first half on 25 minutes when a ball over the top from Audi Dunlea found Ronan Stanton but Smith was quick off his line to clear the shot.
On the verge of half time the ball fell to Holohan in the box following a Kieran Djilali cross but Browne was able to pull off a point blank save.
The second half started off in the same fashion with both teams struggling to cope with the conditions and the ball was staying in the middle of the park as both teams were struggling to put together a group of passes.
Stanton who was full of running for Cobh up front forced Smith into a smart save at his near post following a shot from 12 yards for a corner.
There were a few shots from distance for both sides with Dennehy and Stephen Kenny shooting over the bar.
In the final ten minutes Smith picked up a knock to the head claiming a high ball following a goal mouth scramble.
The game finished out in a nil all draw and both sides will have been happy with the workout but both sides lack of shots on target might give the managers Martin Cambridge and John Caulfield some concern ahead of the season starting in less than 10 days.
Cobh Ramblers: David Browne; Eoghan Murphy, Andrew Bhandarkar (Jonathan Creamer 46), Graham McCarthy, Brendan Frahill, Audi Dunlea, Shane O’Connor, Alan O’Flynn, Ronan Stanton (David Curran 88), Stephen Kenny, Steven McCarthy
Subs not used: Steven Hickey (gk), George Gill, Adam O’Sullivan, Nathaniel Gumbo, Kelvin Kenny.
Cork City: Alan Smith (Kevin O’Brien 81); John Kavanagh, Alan Bennett, Michael McSweeney, Josh O’Shea, Kieran Djilali, Liam Kearney, Gavin Holohan, Billy Dennehy, Danny Morrissey (Conor McCarthy 61), Karl Sheppard.
Sub not used: John Dunleavy, Darren Dennehy, Craig Donnellan, Danny O’Connell, Cian Coleman.
Referee: Graham Kelly (Cork)
Attendance: 250 (estimate)
Extratime.ie Man of the Match: Alan Bennett (Cork City)
