Cork City ... 3 Bray Wanderers ... 1Bray Wanderers found Cork City's outstanding centre forward John O'Flynn too hot to handle at Turner's Cross last night, where the outstanding striker ran riot with three cracking goals to ensure Cork maintain their challenge for a place in Europe.
Bray struggled throughout to contain O'Flynn, and their failure was reflected in the regularity with which they swopped and changed their defensive line. But it was to no avail as the 20-year-old reaped a rich bounty from an outstanding individual performance.
O'Flynn maintained his impressive scoring record this season with his 12th goal of the league campaign after just 12 minutes. He ran clear of the Bray defence to expertly control a long pass from Dan Murray and then clipped the ball past the advancing goalkeeper John Walshe.
To their credit, however, Bray soon carried the fight to Cork after manager Pat Devlin had switched full-back Paul O'Reilly and centre-back Graham O'Hanlon to check the threat of O'Flynn. O'Reilly enjoyed more success by matching the striker for pace.
Bray were soon building a series of attacks that almost produced an equalising goal before half-time. The nearest they came was when Thomas Morgan shot against the crossbar after a clever pass from John Flood in the 29th minute.
Jason Byrne was denied a goal by a last-ditch tackle from Alan Carey after the centre forward had dribbled round goalkeeper Micheál Devine, and Flood was also close with a powerful shot turned over by the goalkeeper.
Devine again showed his class with a brilliant save from Jason Byrne two minutes into the second half after Paul Forsyth had raced clear on the left-wing and fired across an excellent pass. Devine somehow parried Byrne's shot only to see the rebound fall for Barry O'Connor to claim the equaliser.
The goal was the signal for Cork to step up the pace of the game again, and with O'Flynn continuing to wreak havoc up front they were soon laying siege to Bray's goal. O'Flynn claimed his second when he flicked the ball over O'Reilly and raced away to fire under the goalkeeper in the 62nd minute.
And in the 75th minute O'Flynn produced the best goal of the game when he volleyed in a cross from substitute Colin T O'Brien.
CORK CITY: Devine; Carey, Daly, Murray, Horgan; Warren (CT O'Brien 65 mins), O'Grady, Reynolds, Woods, O'Callaghan (CP O'Brien 60 mins), O'Flynn.
BRAY WANDERERS: Walshe; O'Reilly, O'Hanlon (Charles 79 mins), Doohan (Fox 83 mins), Long; O'Connor, Gormley (Britton 46 mins), Morgan, Forsyth; Flood, Byrne.
Referee: H Byrne (Dublin).
