It's points that win prizes, as they say, and having survived being docked nine over a clerical error on Thursday, St Patrick's Athletic's efforts at collecting three more at Richmond Park last night were stifled by a dogged Cork City who came and snatched the win with a superbly taken hat-trick from Ollie Cahill.

St Patrick's, with the strong breeze behind them, started brightly, hitting the Cork woodwork twice inside 11 minutes.

Both efforts came from Ugandan international Mbazazi Livingstone.

The first came on 10 minutes following a sweeping move down the left involving Martin Russell and Ger McCarthy. Paul Marney's shot was blocked away to Livingstone, whose shot in turn was deflected onto a post and out for a corner by Damien O'Rourke.

The crossbar then came to Cork's rescue a minute later when Livingstone availed of the wind to crash a superb, 25-yard shot against it.

Within two minutes a route one approach by Cork brought them the lead.

Devine's clearance was flicked on by Stephen O'Flynn and Ollie Cahill scored with a stunning right-foot volley into the roof of Shay Kelly's net from almost 30 yards.

St Patrick's took time to regain their composure, but really should have been level at the break but for the brilliance of Devine. The Cork goalkeeper initially made a superb one-handed stop to prevent Liam Kelly's skilful volley on the turn from reaching the top corner of his net on 36 minutes. From Livingstone's resultant corner, Devine somehow got his body in the way of Kelly's header from point-blank range.

Pat Morley missed two chances early in the second-half before Cahill, latching onto Morley's excellent pass, outpaced the home defence to shoot home their second goal on 71 minutes.

Hope arrived quickly for St Patrick's three minutes later when Derek Coughlan deflected a shot from Livingstone into his own net following a Russell corner.

But, fittingly, Cahill had the final say two minutes from time as he completed his hat-trick; collecting Morley's pass to slot home the simplest of his three goals.

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: S Kelly; Croly, C Foley, Maguire, Burke; Livingstone, Griffin, Marney, Russell; L Kelly, McCarthy. Subs: O'Keeffe for Croly (66 mins), Doyle for McCarthy (80 mins), Holt for Burke (86 mins).

CORK CITY: Devine; Daly, Coughlan, O'Rourke; Carey, Flanagan, O'Grady, Cahill, Horgan; Morley, O'Flynn. Subs: Napier for Daly (41 mins), O'Brien for O'Flynn (half-time).

Referee: E. Barr (Dublin).