Cork City beaten 4-1 on the road by Athlone Town

Athlone Town 4 Cork City 1 

Cork City ended their away campaign with defeat as the Rebel Army were once again undone at the Athlone Town Stadium on Friday night. 

It was City’s second defeat this season with the previous one coming in the same venue back in May. City can have few complaints about the result as they performed well below their usual standards against an Athlone side that outfought the champions on the night.

City had taken the lead in the game through Ruairi Keating but a Karl Robinson hat-trick, which consisted of three fantastic goals, and a Peter McGregor goal gave the home side a deserved victory.

City made six changes to the starting 11 for the trip to Athlone from the team that drew with Treaty United. The most notable absentee was Seani Maguire who dropped to the bench which saw a change to the City formation, with the Rebel Army reverting back to a 4-3-3, a formation that Tim Clancy’s side had used before Maguire’s arrival in August.

Evan McLaughlin was the first player to test Enda Minogue when his cleanly hit 30-yard free-kick forced the Athlone keeper into making a save. He was a well struck effort from the City left-back but such was the distance of the free, that it made it an easy stop for Minogue.

The hosts should have been in front when Dean Ebbe had a free header inside the City six-yard area but the Athlone striker's effort was straight at Brad Wade, who did very well to make the save, but it was a poor miss.

The City goal was living a charmed life with Niall Brookwell next to prevent Athlone taking the lead when he managed to block Oisin Duffy’s effort on the goalline.

With more at stake for Athlone, with the hosts still able to finish in second place in the league, they looked the hungrier of the sides.

The game was brought to a halt for three minutes when two separate fireworks set off in the distance reached the pitch which forced the players over to the sideline; thankfully none of them were injured from the incident.

City went ahead soon after the game resumed when Keating got on the end of Malik Dijksteel’s flick to head into an empty net. It was a well-worked goal from City with Keating timing his run perfectly to finish off the move.

Athlone leveled before the break when Kyle Robinson showed excellent footwork and composure to evade McLaughlin’s challenge before calmly placing the ball beyond Wade.

Robinson doubled his tally three minutes into the second-half when he was allowed to cut inside onto his left-foot before curling the ball into the far corner, giving Wade little chance in the City goal.

Robinson completed his hat-trick when he scored a contender for goal of the season. The Athlone player smartly controlled Brookwell’s clearing header on the edge of the area before half-volleying the ball into the top corner.

Athlone got their fourth goal in injury time when McGregor had a simple finish from a cross into the six-yard area.

ATHLONE: Minogue; Fuentes, Van Geenan, McKenna (Martin-Conway 79), Torre; Duffy, Robinson (Campion-Hinds 75), Leo Gaxha (Forbes 75), Tetteh (Babatunde 63), Connolly; Ebbe (McGregor 63).

CITY: Wade; Crowley, Brookwell, O’Donovan, McLaughlin (Sowinski 79); Bolger, Healy (Murphy 66) Coffey; Fitzpatrick (Skieters 76), Keating (M Murray 76), Dijksteel (Bargary 79).

Referee: D Murphy.