Cobh Ramblers 1 Waterford FC 3

A sucker punch of an opening at St Colman’s Park saw Cobh Ramblers concede twice in the opening 10 minutes and that helped Waterford to victory in East Cork.

Roland Idowu knocked in the first and Ronan Coughlan scored the second from close range, and that was enough to inflict the second defeat of the season on Shane Keegan and his players.

A penalty from Jack Doherty set up a frantic finish that was calmly dealt with by the Blues, who wrapped things up with Shane Griffin scoring into the Liam McMahon Stand.

It also brings an end to Cobh’s three-match unbeaten run, while loosening their grip as one of the top two teams in the First Division.

And it could have all been so different as Tiernan O’Brien found space inside the opening two minutes and he saw a low shot get easily saved by Paul Martin.

The Blues, who were buoyant after last week’s 7-1 victory over Finn Harps, quickly broke and won a free kick that Griffin took. Giles Philips received this and fed it through to Tunmise Sobowale on the right. A pass was knocked down by Coughlan to Idowu and he slid this in from inside the area.

Just over two minutes later, Griffin put in a low cross from the right and Coughlan tapped this in. It was 2-0 before the clock entered double digits, and the sizable travelling support from Waterford were loving this.

Jack Doherty took a ball down from the restart and his attempt was parried away by Martin. The forward tried again and lashed it off the crossbar, a moment that James O’Leary would repeat when they next got into the penalty area.

Wilson Waweru thought he did enough to pull one back when he connected with a corner, but his header was taken off the line by Philips.

On the hour mark, Killian Cantwell brought down Doherty and referee Gavin Colfer pointed to the spot. The forward sent the ball into the bottom left corner and cut Waterford’s lead by one.

Conor Drinan was then brought on by Keegan, and the Ramblers took total control of the game.

Once Waterford weathered this storm, they began to frustrate Cobh with some neat play down the right-hand side. Coughlan went very close to setting up a second with a low ball across the area, but this was clamoured away by the Cobh defence.

Waterford stole the ball once hit the ground and targeted the opposite wing. This led to Griffin side-footing in a Niall O’Keeffe pass and that made it 3-1 to the Blues.

The best Cobh could do late on was a header from substitute Jake Hegarty that hit inside of the post and Martin picked this up with very little fuss.

COBH: Lee Steacy; Cian Browne, Justin Eguailbor, Charlie Lyons, Wilson Waweru, Pierce Philips, Jack Doherty, Charlie O’Brien, Dale Holland, Tiernan O’Brien, James O’Leary.

Subs: Conor Drinan for O’Leary (71), Issa Kargbo for Tiernan O’Brien (74), Jake Hegarty for Waweru (83), Luke Desmond for Charlie O’Brien (83), Callum Stringer for Holland (83).

WATERFORD: Paul Martin; Ryan Burke, Niall O’Keeffe, Shane Griffin, Barry Crow Baggley, Tunmise Sobowale, Ronan Coughlan, Roland Idowu, Giles Philips, Killian Cantwell, Dean McMenamy.

Subs: Dean Larkin for Idowu (71), Wassim Aouachria for Coughlan (88).

Referee: Gavin Colfer