Danny Lafferty double sees Shamrock Rovers shake off Cork City

Morrissey strike gave Leesiders hope but Hoops march on

Danny Lafferty of Shamrock Rovers shoots to score his side's second goal against Cork City at Tallaght Stadium in Dublin. Picture; Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

Shamrock Rovers 2 Cork City 1

Any thoughts of AC Milan and the Europa League were put to one side this evening as Shamrock Rovers saw to business in the FAI Cup with a deserved but had-earned win that takes the holders through to the quarter-finals.

Stephen Bradley's league leaders will face the Italian giants here in Tallaght on September 17 after Monday's Uefa draw but they had little time to daydream about Zlatan Ibrahimovic & Co with City arriving in Tallaght just hours later.

The visitors batted gamely, and equalised through Gearoid Morrissey in the second half, but they spent long stretches of the game under serious pressure and succumbed to a pair of goals from Rovers' marauding defender Danny Lafferty.

Rovers were without Neil Farrugia and Liam Scales who are on duty with Jim Crawford's Ireland U21s until Thursday while Rory Gaffney, Sean Kavanagh and Greg Bolger all remain on the casualty list. Ronan Finn and Aaron McEneff started on the bench.

City were making do without Joseph Olowu, Uniss Kargbo, Graham Cummins, and Alex Byrne. The veteran pair of Mark McNulty and Alan Bennett were among the substitutes for a game that manager Neale Fenn insisted was not a nuisance as they bid to stay in the Premier Division.

Rovers dominated the first-half, as was to be expected in a game between sides sitting at opposite sides of the top tier's ladder. The hosts engineered seven chances of varying quality and from different sources before finally taking the lead.

Twice they came agonisingly close, first when Roberto Lopes' header was cleared off the line and again when Dean Williams tapped in after a lovely move orchestrated by Jack Byrne but was then called back for offside against Rhys Marshall.

The opener came seven minutes from time with Cork goalkeeper Liam Bossin only able to parry Graham Burke's shot from distance and an unmarked Lafferty had little option but to find the net from just outside the six-yard box.

Fenn replaced Bossin with McNulty at the interval and the 39-year old stopped shots by Williams and Lafferty in the next half-dozen minutes. If that was to be expected then the goal City fashioned at the other end in the midst of it came out of the blue.

It happened in a flash, Dylan McGlade working a seam down the Rovers left flank and pulling a clever ball back from the end line and into the path of an unmarked and onrunning Morrissey whose finish into the far corner gave Alan Mannus no chance.

City played far more football after the break but the general run of play was still going against them and Lafferty struck for his second after 68 minutes, his low and accurate finish on the overlap from a Byrne feed a fitting finish to a fine move.

Rovers saw it out from there but they were made work for it.

Shamrock Rovers: A Mannus, R Marshall, R Lopes, J O'Brien, D Lafferty, L Grace, D Watts, G O'Neill, G Burke, J Byrne, D Williams.

Substitutes: R Finn for O'Brien, A Greene fior Williamans and A McEneff for O'Neill (all 74); B Kavanagh for Burke (89).

Cork City: L Bossin; C Fleming, R Slevin, H Ochieng, G Morrissey, D McGlade, C Coleman, K O'Connor, D Dalling, J O'Brien, C Simpson.

Substitutes: M McNulty for Bossin and D Holland for Fleming (both HT); S Fenwick for Simpson (75); G O'Connor for Dalling and R Dinanga for McGlade (both 87).