City secure precious points - February 19,
2001
Cork City 1 Bray Wanderers 0
The ghost of relegation, which began to haunt Turners Cross in the last days of the Mountfield regime, has been busted. Who you gonna call? Liam Murphy!
The Cork caretaker boss managed something that only Dermot Keely had equalled in the previous 14 games - beat Bray in a league match! And in doing so, he took his tally to four points from a possible six since taking charge of City.
Cork's winner was fashioned by James Mulligan, just eleven minutes into the game. He collected a long ball from Michael Devine and held off a challenge before squaring for Ollie Cahill to rifle home from outside the box.
After that Cork defended in depth and comfortably coped with Bray's feeble efforts to equalise - until the last minute, when they somehow survived what looked a certain goal.
A fast Bray break left them three-to-one on Devine - but Kieran Ryan blasted over from twelve yards!
"This was our worst performance of the season," said Bray manager Pat Devlin. "All we can do is to forget about it. I felt sorry for any punters who paid in to watch and especially those who travelled with us from Bray."
There was more good news for Cork when Derek Coughlan returned from injury and Noel Hartigan - invited back by Murphy - came on as a 70th-minute sub to end a spell of self-imposed exile.
Cork City: Devine, O'Rourke, Coughlan, Napier, Horgan, O'Halloran, Flanagan, Buckley, Cahill, Morley, Mulligan
Subs: Tynan for O'Rourke 46, Hartigan for Morley 70
Goal: Cahill 11
Bray Wanderers: Walsh, Britton, Lynch, Doohan, Farrell, Long, Tresson, Campbell, Keogh, Byrne, O'Connor
Subs: Fox for Britton 63, O'Brien for Campbell 83, Ryan for Long 90
Referee: J McDermott (Dublin)