Cork City 0
Derry City 1
Stephen Barry reports from Turner’s Cross
A SCREAMER FROM Ronan Boyce was a fitting winner to clinch European football for Derry City and leave Cork City staring into a relegation play-off.
The right-back exchanged a quick one-two with Cameron Dummigan and unleashed an unstoppable shot from outside the box into the far top corner in the 78th minute.
A fourth clean sheet on the spin completes a clean sweep of four League wins over Cork this season and guarantees a Europa Conference League qualification spot for next year.
The loss all but condemns Cork to the relegation play-off as they lie six points behind Sligo Rovers with two games to go and a goal-difference deficit of 12 in Sligo’s favour.
Three sections of Turner’s Cross were closed as punishment for an incident at the FAI Cup semi-final and that contributed to a season-low crowd of 1,868.
Cork controlled the opening half as they had two goals disallowed and restricted Derry to one shot, with Tiernan Brooks acrobatically saving a Will Patching free.
Ruairí Keating entered the game in a three-way tie at the top of the golden-boot standings and he had the ball in the Derry net in the 34th minute. Damien Mac Graith’s whistle had already sounded, however, as Cian Bargary hadn’t kept the ball in play before his pull-back.
They had another goal disallowed on the stroke of half-time for a Keating foul on Cameron McJannet before Barry Coffey turned it home.
Derry gave a statement of intent on the restart with Michael Duffy’s volley cannoning off the post within a minute from a Paul McMullan cross.
Both sides made triple changes in a bid to change the game but it was Boyce’s moment of individual brilliance that broke the deadlock.
Danny Mullen should’ve made it safe when in one-on-one but his miss left it open for some stoppage-time drama.
Tunde Owolabi slipped through the defence but Boyce raced across to make the block. From the corner, Owolabi rose highest but Brian Maher tipped over. The final chance ran to Gordon Walker but his curled effort was headed away to safety.
Cork City: T Brooks; K Custovic (G Walker, 69), C Coleman (T Owolabi, 84), J Hakkinen, J Honohan; A Bolger, A Kravchuk; C Bargary (J Kabia, 69), B Coffey (M Dijksteel, 61), B Worman (C Murphy, 69); R Keating.
Derry City: B Maher; R Boyce, M Connolly (S Todd, 76), C McJannet, B Doherty; A O’Reilly (D Mullen, 72), C Dummigan; P McMullan (P McEleney, 72), W Patching, B Kavanagh (J McEneff, 72); M Duffy (C Coll, 92).
Referee: D Mac Graith.