United rise to occasion by dumping Cork out of Cup

Galway United 1

Cork City 0

Keith Kelly at Eamonn Deacy Park

GALWAY United corrected a number of ‘wrongs’ on Friday night as they pulled off the shock of the round to dump Cork City out of the FAI Cup with a performance that earned standing ovations from the home fans both on the half-time and full-time whistles.

Never scored against City in the Cup – check. Never beaten City in the Cup – check. An 11-year wait for a win over City in any competition – check.

More importantly, this was a performance which manager, Alan Murphy, had promised all season that his side was capable of, one which validates his attempts to rebuild the club by focussing on young, local players supported by a sprinkling of experience from outside the region.

If anything, Friday night’s scoreline flatters the visitors. Yes, United were that good – 13 efforts on goal to City’s five; seven shots on target compared to none for City. But the most important statistic of all is contained in the final scoreline – one goal for United, nada for a visiting side that had reached the last four FAI Cup finals, winning two of them.

That all-important goal came two minutes into injury-time at the end of the first-half, and was just reward for United’s superiority over their more illustrious visitors in that opening 45 minutes.

Stephen Christopher whipped-in a corner from the left, and Conor Melody rose highest to meet the cross with a bullet-like header – Mark McNulty in the City goal managed to get a full hand on the ball, but such was the power in Melody’s effort, the goalkeeper was unable to prevent the ball from squeezing past him at his near post.

The goal was also a reward for Murphy’s decision to forego a target man – in this case, Vinny Faherty – and the temptation to lump balls forward, and instead to trust the pace in his side to run at the City defence that had kept just eight clean sheets in 34 competitive games this season going into Friday night’s game.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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