The battle of the interim bosses served up goals and chances galore - and a win for St Patrick’s Athletic that ended a three-game losing streak.
In front of a disappointing crowd of 3,211 at Turner’s Cross, struggling Cork City fell to their ninth defeat of the season.
Much of the pre-match talk centred on the dramatic events of the previous few days, which saw both Colin Healy and Tim Clancy leave their posts at Cork and Pat’s respectively.
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Rumours swirled around as to who their long-term successors might be, with former Sligo Rovers and Northern Ireland manager Ian Baraclough leading a long list of names linked with the Cork post.
Tim Clancy, whose departure from Inchicore meant Jon Daly took charge last night, could also be in line for the Rebel Army job.
Daly, meanwhile, passed the first stage of his audition for the permanent job with St Pat’s by taking all three points back to Dublin.
But it wasn’t a comfortable night for either Daly or Liam Buckley, his opposite number in the interim manager role.
The chaos that engulfed both clubs in recent days bled onto the pitch, which was great from an entertainment point of view, but hardly what either temporary gaffer would have wanted.
The action swung wildly from one end to the other and back again - and the first-half should have yielded more than the three goals that were scored.
Pat’s were kicking themselves when goalkeeper Jimmy Corcoran spread himself to deny Mark Doyle from close range with just 45 seconds on the clock.
Tunde Owolabi was kicking the turf in frustration a few minutes later when referee Eoghan O’Shea failed to award a stonewall penalty to the Cork striker.
Dutch defender Noah Lewis breathed a sigh of relief that his trip on Owolabi somehow escaped the attention of the official.
To rub salt into the hosts’ wounds, they were a goal down after six minutes.
A classy Chris Forrester pass to Anto Breslin gave the full-back plenty of room to pick out Carty with a low cross to the back post. Under pressure, Carty finished from close range.
City were level on 15 minutes when a short St Pat’s goal-kick backfired and Owolabi bundled the ball home from close range.
Mulraney then hit the Cork crossbar from 18 yards minutes before the Leesiders turned the game on its head, when O’Brien-Whitmarsh headed the ball home from the edge of the area.
Ruairi Keating should have made it 3-1 in the 23rd minute, but he failed to connect with Matt Healy’s cross with the goal at his mercy.
Play yo-yoed from end-to-end in a three-minute spell around the half-hour, with Owolabi, Mulraney and Owoabi again failing to convert.
Mulraney finally got his goal 10 minutes into the second-half to bring the sides level again, when he cut inside from the right and drilled the ball high inside the near post from 20 yards.
And Pat’s completed the turnaround on 80 minutes when Forrester’s through ball sent substitute Adam Murphy through, and he lifted the ball over the on-rushing Corcoran.
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