Late Healy stunner lifts City

Cork City 1 St Patrick’s Athletic 0

Pat’s will point to the sending off of Mark Quigley with nine minutes remaining as a significant turning point but, as Cork looked to press home their advantage, it still took a truly spectacular effort from the veteran Healy to send the Shed End into raptures and leave the reigning champions with no way back.

In the absence of transfer target Brian Lenihan, skipper John Dunleavy played at right-back with City boss John Caulfield opting to hand Michael McSweeney his league debut at centre-half. For Pat’s, manager Liam Buckley reshuffled his troops to compensate for the loss of the injured Ken Oman – Killian Brennan his surprise replacement at centre-half — and the suspended Chris Forrester, with recent Ireland international Keith Fahey returning from his own ban for the reigning champions.