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Cork City goalscorer Sean Maguire (file pic). Tommy Dickson/INPHO
LOI

Cork City make a winning start on the road for the first time in 12 years

The Leesiders hadn’t won away from home on the opening weekend since beating Harps in 2005.

Finn Harps 0
Cork City 1

Alan Foley reports from Finn Park

THERE’S NO BAD time to score a goal but on a wretched night in Ballybofey, it was Sean Maguire’s 45th-minute strike that won three points for Cork City at Finn Harps’ expense.

Cork held on for the last quarter of an hour with 10 men as Garry Buckley was sent off for a second yellow card and, all things considered, were still closest to scoring a second goal.

It was a fine win to open their Premier Division campaign, especially for the brave souls who travelled to the north-west in miserable conditions.

Maguire was on hand to poke past Ciaran Gallagher 30 seconds before the break after a flick-on from Jimmy Keohane on a night of few opportunities.

It was the first meaningful shot on goal, with Gallagher having made the most routine of saves beforehand from both Kevin O’Connor and Keohane.

Harps started with Paddy McCourt among their substitutes, although the Derry native came on with 70 minutes played with the home side chasing an equaliser.

Ollie Horgan’s team were typically competitive but flowing football was the exception and not the rule when the direct route certainly seemed the preferred course of action.

Harps failed to test Mark McNulty in the visitors’ goal in the first 45 minutes. It was almost 2-0 a minute after the break when, following a scramble from the heavens, Ryan Delaney took a swing after Maguire flicked on an O’Connor corner. The ball even clipped the base of Gallagher’s post but it was Barry Molloy, the Harps midfielder, who eventually lumped clear.

Caolan McAleer warmed McNulty’s hands with a 57th-minute sizzler with Harps’ first shot on target to show last year’s FAI Cup winners that the destination of the three points was far from a certainty.

Conor McCormack could’ve banked those points, though, only for Gallagher to make a superb save. Barely 30 seconds later, on 75 minutes, Buckley picked up a second yellow card.

Cork were somehow denied a second goal in the last minute of the 90 when Maguire hit the Harps post twice in succession — the second as a clearance rebounded off him — in a rather bizarre passage of play.

Finn Harps: Ciaran Gallagher; Ethan Boyle, Damien McNulty, Killian Cantwell, Ciaran Coll; Caolan McAleer, Sean Houston (Paddy McCourt, 70), Barry Molloy (Gareth Harkin, 77), Jonny Bonner; Danny Morrissey (Eddie Dsane, 77), Ciaran O’Connor.

Cork City: Mark McNulty; Conor McCormack, Johnny Dunleavy, Ryan Delaney, Kevin O’Connor; Jimmy Keohane, Gearoid Morrissey, Greg Bolger (Karl Sheppard, 70), Stephen Dooley (Alan Bennet, 90); Garry Buckley; Sean Maguire.

Referee: Robert Harvey

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