Derry bring it all back home

It may not have been a classic, but then few enough people expected one given that their league form has left both teams desperate to keep their Harp Lager FAI Cup runs going. Nobody could have doubted how much was at stake as they battled their way to a draw at Turner's Cross, in front of a crowd of 6,000 yesterday.

Flowing football was lacking all right. But as for the commitment - there was no need to ask either manager afterwards whether his men had been up for it. That much have been abundantly clear through a frantic 90 minutes which Derry, after a desperately shakey start, just about shaded.

Neither side could have much complaint about the need for a replay. Derry's directors looked positively delirious, while Dave Barry lamented the fact that his side hadn't made more of their supremacy during the opening 25 minutes, a spell in which they ran their visitors completely ragged.

Through that quarter Cork had the better of things in every area of the pitch and Derry's central defensive partnership of Paul Curran and Gavin Dykes appeared to have the sort of understanding one would expect of recently acquainted pen pals. Had Cork made the most of their chances then, it might have all been a very different story.

But they didn't and, as Felix Healy's men came to grips with the situation, the tide began to turn, particularly out wide where Barry's decision to play with wing backs rather than Ollie Cahill and Colin O'Brien allowed the visitors an avenue out of defence.

Cork did score early on. The second of two quick Ollie Cahill corners was swung in towards the centre where, during a packed scramble, the ball struck Sean Hargan on the arm. After a second of hesitation by a couple of players, Derek Coughlan swiped at the ball as it dropped, appeared to completely mis-hit it, but sent it in off the inside of the right hand angle anyway.

That, however, should have been number two, for 10 minutes earlier Jason Kabia had shrugged off Gavin Dykes's challenge to go clean through on Tony O'Dowd. Shooting anywhere except straight at the keeper seemed a guaranteed recipe for success, but the 28-year-old's aim was poor and after O'Dowd's block, the ball was scrambled away to safety.

Kabia might have made amends midway through the half had Cahill's cross not been fractionally behind him. Derry had been let off the hook and as the game moved towards the end of the first half hour, it was they who began to gather a bit of momentum.

At the back they regained their composure, in midfield Paul Heggarty began to get a little time and space on the ball, and out wide James Keddy began to edge forward into increasing dangerous positions.

It took another while before they had their first real chance of the game, but when it came it was from the left where Keddy knocked the ball back to Robbie Brunton whose cross was headed down by Sean Hargan for Craig Taggart. The Scot, bought in to replace Peter Hutton, had time to tee up his shot, golf style, but he didn't need it. From 10 yards out he unleashed a scorching drive which Noel Mooney just about had time to react to, but no chance whatsoever of saving.

Derry looked like they could go on and win. However, for all the pressure they exerted through the second half, they only once found a way through a desperately determined Cork City defence. That came just eight minutes from time when Hegarty fed Keddy, whose tantalising cross somehow eluded Gary Beckett at the near post, as well as Liam Coyle and Hargan at the far one.

Had the visiting strikers been having one of their better days that would have been that, but Coyle looked troubled throughout by a hamstring problem while Beckett, even before he suffered a suspected broken arm after colliding with a hoarding, simply failed to make an impact.

At the other end Cork's chances were now coming largely from breaks and John Caulfield and O'Brien both beat the offside trap and were in on goal.

Brilliant defensive work by Curran and Brunton respectively saved the day, and helped to force a replay which will take place at the Brandywell on Tuesday evening.

Cork's record there is not too bad over the past couple of seasons and Derry may have to contend with the loss of a couple of players from yesterday; Paul Heggarty also ended the game with a suspected broken jaw.

Barry admitted afterwards that his side's failure to be just a little more positive yesterday had now handed their opponents the initiative. He'll need no reminding either of the 1989 final when he hit the post in the original game and Healy scored the winner in the replay.

Still, he'll probably agree with his opposite number's conclusion yesterday that "there's a hell of a lot more more football to be played in this tie yet".

CORK: Mooney; Coughlan, Daly, Cronin; Napier, O'Brien, Freyne, Cahill, Barry Murphy; Kabia, Caulfield. Subs: Hartigan for Kabia (70 mins), Flanagan for Murphy (54 mins).

DERRY: O'Dowd; Doherty, Curram, Dykes, Brunton; Hargan, Taggart, Hegarty, Keddy; Beckett, Coyle.

Referee: H Byrne (Dublin).