Dave Barry may still insist that it's too early to call this league a two-horse race, but, to look at Mick Byrne after his side had been outplayed by the southerners for a second successive week, it was fairly clear what the Rovers boss was thinking.

A couple of weeks ago, with a little luck on the day, Rovers beat City's only current title rivals, St Patrick's Athletic. But these two games against the leaders will be best forgotten around the club - if that's possible for a side who rather fancied they'd be in a position to challenge this season themselves.

Instead, they now lie 20 points behind City and can have few complaints about the six that have been contributed to the margin over the last eight days. True, like last week, they had a couple of chances to find the net yesterday, but, just as they had been in Turner's Cross, they were well outplayed in every area of the pitch for the bulk of the game. They might, quite easily, have been beaten by more.

Both managers singled out the two saves made by Cork's Noel Mooney shortly into the second half as key points in the game. First Billy Woods, with a low shot from six yards, and then, from the spot, Tony Cousins had great chances to score. Within five minutes of the restart Rovers should have been 2-1 up, but neither finished ruthlessly enough Cork compounded their misfortune by doubling the lead within seconds of the penalty miss. Rovers, though, should not even have been behind at that point for, while City had been the better side up until then, their only goal, scored by Derek Coughlan after 15 minutes had been primarily down to some terrible defending.

In fact, all three goals were. The first started with an Ollie Cahill corner from the right which Gerald Dobbs flicked on but which should have been cut out before it came near the big central defender.

The second was scored by John Caulfield on the break which immediately followed the missed penalty when, it seemed, most of the home side were still bemoaning Mooney's save. And the third was squarely down to Paul Whelan and Terry Palmer: the former allowed Caulfield to squeeze around on the line, the latter failed to get between the resulting cross and the in-rushing Dobbs.

Had the home side's problems been limited to their defence then they might, at least, have snatched a goal or two at the other end, but, the 46th to 50th minutes aside, they rarely threatened.

Apparently Cousins had been suffering with a back problem before the kick-off and had only played because Jason Sherlock wasn't considered to be fully right himself. There wasn't much Byrne could have done about that. But, in the circumstances, playing with one striker looked like a miscalculation, for Coughlan, called into the Irish under-21 squad for the injured Colin Hawkins yesterday, and Dave Hill shared the responsibility for looking after the lone striker. Hard as Cousins worked, he made scarcely any impact.

Late on Rovers went to 43-3, but by then it was 3-0, the game was lost and Cousins was about to further injure himself while attempting an elaborate volley. They stuck with the formation until the end but continued to lose the battle in midfield, where Patsy Freyne and Cahill were again on form.

Cahill was one of several players who might have added to the margin of victory, although his manager was hardly complaining. "We're not counting on anything yet," said Barry, "but to beat a team like Rovers in back-to-back games is a huge boost for us.

"It's great as well to come away, score a few goals and keep a clean sheet. We've been playing well at home in front of big crowds, but to show that we can come somewhere like here and win well is important for us, it helps to keep the spirits up and as long as the spirit in the team is the way it is now we have every chance."

Across the hall, Mick Byrne pointed out that City have had a little good fortune on their side so far, which is certainly not something with which his side have been over-burdened. Still, the Rovers manager had no real complaints, and when his assistant, Frank O'Neill, described what had happened as a "slaughter", he got little argument from his boss.

Shamrock Rovers: O'Dowd; Britton, Palmer, Whelan, Dunne; Woods, Kenny, Colwell, Tracey, Morrisroe; Cousins. Subs: O'Neill and Sherlock for Colwell and Woods (54 mins), O'Meara for Cousins (58 mins).

Cork City: Mooney; O'Halloran, Coughlan, Hill, Barry Murphy; Flanagan, Freyne, Herrick, Cahill; Caulfield, Dobbs. Subs: Morley for Dobbs (78 mins), Hartigan for Caulfield (83 mins).

Referee: G Perry (Dublin).