Another game with enough heart-stopping moments to make it proscribed viewing in the nation's cardiac units, City's win ensures that the National League title will come down to the last round of games for the fifth time in the 1990s.

In the end Pat Morley's 150th league goal and Colin O'Brien's second since returning from a cruciate ligament injury last year were enough to keep the pressure on St Patrick's Athletic. They will still end up second if they lose to Bray and Cork beat Shamrock Rovers at home next Sunday.

This is not too likely a scenario, perhaps, but there won't be too many people in the Richmond Park camp who have forgotten just how easily things can be turned around by an unlikely combination of results when it all appears to already over.

Like their rivals for the title on Friday, Cork came up against some spirited opposition yesterday. Shelbourne, anxious to secure their place in Europe for next season, played a brand of open football which, City manager Dave Barry remarked afterwards, isn't produced too often by teams on a day trip to Turner's Cross.

"It was like a cup tie towards the end," said a visibly relieved Barry, "but to get that sort of character and commitment from part-time professionals, particularly after they had come from the goal down, well, I don't know what to say, except that it deserves a lot of credit.

"The main thing I'm delighted about," he continued "is that we've made St Patrick's go out there and win the league. It would have been terrible if they'd just got it without having to kick a ball. They may be still in the driving seat but there's nothing decided now until it's all over next Sunday."

It was a sentiment readily echoed by Shelbourne's Dermot Keely who, despite seeing his team lose, gave his players credit for the way they had performed in a thoroughly entertaining contest. "I'm glad for Cork that they've pushed it to the last day, they deserve it and it's good for the league. And I wouldn't be calling which way it'll go next week either. I remember well back in 1995 with Dundalk, we were the outsiders in a three-way thing on the last day and we still won it, so anything can happen when it gets this far in."

That City have forced it to the last day says a great deal about the determination that Barry's players showed in a game which, after the home side's claims that Dave Hill had been fouled and Pat Scully drew the visitors level from close range on 71 minutes, looked set to be the final, frantic, chapter in a memorable championship campaign.

That the game reached half-time without producing a goal seemed astonishing given the number of chances both sides created.

In a match played at this sort of pace there were bound to be openings, but even in a contest which both sides desperately needed to win, the two defences appeared willing to ride their luck to a remarkable extent.

Either defence might have been punished during a hectic opening 15 minutes. Dessie Baker carved out the best of the Shelbourne chances by beating three defenders before having his attempted shot blocked down, while Gerald Dobbs blasted wide at the other end after a lucky deflection give the opportunity. Dobbs was eventually replaced by John Caulfield in the second half with Johnny Glynn being thrown into the action late as the City bench became increasingly agitated about their team's title chances. Both of the replacement strikers were involved in the goal that keeps them in the hunt.

With 82 minutes played, possession, as it had been repeatedly through the game, was up for grabs inside the Shelbourne half, and Glynn, just arrived for Brian Barry Murphy, was the man who stepped up to take control of the ball. The former Galway United striker fed Patsy Freyne out towards the right-hand side of the area and his low cross was pushed onto the foot of the left-hand post by Caulfield before Morley arrived to turn the rebound home.

City's performance merited the winner, but after they had allowed an earlier lead to slip away a win didn't seem likely. The Shelbourne midfield, where Dessie Baker and Paul Doolin were especially disappointing through the second period, helped give their opponents the advantage when with a little short of half an hour to play, a rashly conceded free out on the left started the move from which Colin O'Brien sidefooted home his second league goal of the season from just outside the edge of the six-yard box.

Although everybody in the visiting side stepped up a gear as the game neared its end, a second bite of the cherry didn't seem likely. On the bench, though, Barry was keeping the faith. "I knew if the ball came to Pat Morley that's all it would take, one chance. I didn't doubt for a minute that if it fell to him he'd stick it away, why would I? Hasn't he been doing it for us for years!"

Cork City: Mooney; Daly, Hill, Cronin, Barry Murphy; Flanagan, Freyne, Herrick, Cahill; Dobbs, Morley. Subs: O'Brien for Flanagan (half-time), Caulfield for Dobbs (73 mins), Glynn for Barry Murphy (77 mins).

Shelbourne: O'Leary; Heary, Scully, Campbell, D Geoghegan; D Baker, Doolin, Byrne, R Baker; Sheridan, S Geoghegan. Subs: Kelly for D Baker (61 mins), McCarthy for Scully (73 mins), O'Brien for S Geoghegan (86 mins).

Referee: P McKeon (Dublin).