Before this game got under way City manager Derek Mountfield would surely have been the happier of the two managers had they been told how things would turn out. Afterwards, though, it was Stephen Kenny who was wearing the expression of a relieved man. Well, 91st-minute equalisers do have that effect on people, don't they?

The home club's best crowd of the season weren't exactly treated to a cracker, but there was no denying that, as it moved into its closing stages still goalless, this was a game that generated its fair share of excitement.

With 10 minutes to go a goal for either team looked certain to decide it, and when Cork, as they had appeared likely to do for a while, made the breakthrough, thanks first to the determination and clever footwork of Martin Mulligan and then to the calm finishing of Pat Morley, that pretty much looked to be that.

Certainly the regulars at Flancare Park haven't had the opportunity to grow used to draws over the past few months. Longford's entertaining mixture of enthusiastic attacking play with some seat-of-the-pants defending had only thrown up one before Saturday night, although it's worth noting that on that occasion, a 2-2 draw with Galway back in September, Kenny's men came from behind not once but twice.

This time, having created little of note during the 90 minutes, they managed it at the death thanks to a long Wes Byrne free kick that Stuart Holt sent back across the face of the goal for Vinny Perth to finish from close range.

Seconds later John Caulfield, who had conceded the free, had a header cleared off the line at the other end by stand-in centrehalf Stuart Byrne. But while stolen, late equalisers have a way of leaving everybody feeling that justice has been done, late winners rarely have the same effect. Even Mountfield seemed content to settle for the replay at Turner's Cross next Sunday.

"In the circumstances obviously I'm disappointed because I thought we created enough chances to win the game," said the Englishman, "but I was pleased with our performance tonight and we're getting the opportunity to finish the job at home, where we'll have a couple of players back, so I haven't really got any complaints."

One drawback for the southerners, though, is that their recently postponed Shamrock Rovers match is re-fixed for Wednesday week, so they will now have to play four games in nine days, starting with Galway away this Friday and ending with Shelbourne the following Sunday. By then the club's season could, to all intents and purposes, be over.

Longford will also go into the cup replay less than 48 hours after a league game, but that's a prospect that Kenny openly welcomed: "It makes a bit of endurance test of it, but that appeals to me."

On Saturday, coming off the back of three straight defeats, they at least showed that they have the mental strength to battle their way out of a tight corner. But having shown that they've remembered how not to lose games, the task in Turner's Cross will be to rediscover the flair they'd been showing up to a month ago for winning them.

Longford Town: O'Brien; E Kenny, S Byrne, P McNally, W Byrne; Gavin (Holt, 78 mins), V Perth, Kelly, Coyle; O'Connor (Notaro, 56 mins), N Byrne (H Kenny, 73 mins).

Cork City: Devine; O'Brien, Coughlan, Napier, O'Halloran; Caulfield, Herrick, Gaughan, Cahill; Morley, Mulligan.

Referee: J McDermott (Dublin).