Manning’s brace of penalties not enough to save Mervue

MERVUE Utd’s unbeaten run came to an end at St Colman’s Park after Martin Deady scored a dramatic stoppage time winner as Cobh Ramblers recorded a second home win over Johnny Glynn’s side on Saturday evening.

The Cork venue has proved to be the place for goals this season with 39 goals having been scored in the nine league fixtures this year prior to Saturday night’s game, including an eight goal thriller the last time the two sides met in April.

In a game that started slowly, Mervue tried to force the early pace as Jason Molloy, Ryan Manning and Stephen Walsh all had efforts on goal but it was the home side who took the lead on 38 minutes. Rob Waters played a fine ball through to Kynan Rocks who did well to hold off Martin Conneely before slotting the ball past Connor Gleeson to give his side a 1-0 interval advantage.

Ten minutes after the restart Cobh had doubled their lead. A combination of errors from Mervue allowed Rocks to square a ball to Davin O’Neill and he had the simple task of side footing into the empty from inside the six yard box.

It looked as if the home side were coasting to the three points until Roy Kenny upended Marc Ludden in the box following a corner with 18 minutes remaining. Converting spot kicks has proved a problem for Mervue this season but young Ryan Manning confidently dispatched the ball past Shane Hallahan to set up a frantic finish to the game.

Manning and Walsh went close to levelling matters as Glynn’s side pushed hard into the final 10 minutes for an equaliser which did arrived four minutes from time. In a bizarre sequence of play, Manning played in Gary Shanahan who crossed for Walsh and his under hit effort was palmed away by Hallahan only for defender Brendan Frahill to handle the loose ball for another spot kick.

Manning repeated his feat of earlier as he made no mistake levelling matters when he blasted a low strike past Hallahan from the spot for what had looked like an unlikely point. Gleeson saved from O’Neill with two minutes remaining in a one-on-one situation, while Stephen Walsh almost produced a winner for Mervue but he pulled his shot just wide of the near post.

Shanahan then missed a great chance in the final minute to win it for Mervue but he shot over when well placed before Deady latched onto O’Neill’s header down from a long ball to finish past Gleeson in the 91st minute and snatch all three points.