Cork City see off Athlone to end away hoodoo
Cork City players celebrate their second goal scored by Jack Baxter. Picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
After 22 months without a win away from home, Cork City manager Colin Healy will have allowed himself a long and satisfying sigh of relief when the final whistle sounded in Athlone Friday night.
Concerns about the mediocre quality of the 90 minutes of action that yielded the win will have been saved for this morning and the few days ahead, and will possibly be assuaged by the fact that as the clock ticked on and the prospect of a vital victory drew closer, City seemed to be able to produce the most controlled, assured football they’ve delivered for some time.
Jack Baxter’s powerful drive inside Michael Schlingermann’s near post in the 90th minute may have wrapped up the victory and made the four minutes of stoppage time lot easier on the nerves of the City players and management, but by then they had already dulled the edge of the home side’s attack and were finding it relatively easy to control possession, even in advanced areas of the field.
Energy levels too will have been a source of encouragement. It was notable that when Athlone struggled to get control of the ball and execute a clearance for that Baxter goal, the stray toe-poke out of the box from Dylan Hand that travelled to no-one in particular was seized upon by four different green jerseys, with nary a blue one in sight. Two slick passes later, the net was dancing to the tune of Baxter’s thunderous strike.
It wasn’t like that all night, by a long chalk. The first half was a disjointed affair, where errors punctuated the play of both teams, and the best that could be said for the visiting side was that they made their mistakes in safer areas of the field.
Adam Wixted, James Doona and in particular Derek Daly caused City plenty of problems down the flanks, but the return of captain Gearóid Morrissey, deployed just in front of the defence as a holding midfielder, was a huge steadying influence. Athlone had some shots on goal, perhaps three each half, but crucially, Mark McNulty never had to move his feet to make the save.
A cross from Gordon Walker led to a powerful half-volley from Cian Murphy that drew a wonderful save from Schlingermann on the half hour for the first highlight from a City perspective, but out of nowhere Cork were handed the opening goal in the 44th minute, Alec Byrne gratefully slamming the ball home from the edge of the six-yard box after first Dan McKenna and then Jamie Hollywood showed dreadful hesitancy and poor control close to their own goal.
Wide areas continued to be Athlone’s best avenue for attack, particularly down the left, and Kurtis Byrne and James Doona will both feel that they could and should have done better with openings in the third quarter.
Athlone went into this game with a much better points tally, but most of those were bagged early in the season – including three from their Leeside visit in April. Now, they were low on confidence too, and as theirs ebbed, Cork City began to skip and step, sensing that their long, fruitless run of away trips was about to come to an end.
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