Dave Barry was keen to emphasise that losing a game like this is not the end of the world, as he pointed out, there are 12 league games left. Still, there was no attempt to pretend that that what took place in front a crowd of some 10,000 at Turner's Cross was anything other than a severe body blow to Cork City's championship ambitions.
They had lost a game having completely dominated the first half and led at the break and the contest, everybody agreed, turned on the changes made by the visiting side at half-time. Leon Braithwaite, one of the chief victims of Liam Buckley's arrival, was sent on for Ian Gilzean and Martin Russell was asked to slot in just behind the substitute and Martin Reilly.
It took a couple of minutes for the benefits of the switch to start showing but having fleetingly continued to dominate the game the way they had over the first 45 minutes things started to crumble for the hosts. Russell caused mayhem just in front of City's central defenders and Braithwaite was at the heart of both goals - scoring one and, three minutes later, having a crack at a second only to see the shot cleared as far as his lurking team-mate, Stephen McGuinness.
The chief difference of opinion in the losing camp afterwards was whether somebody should have been deployed to mark Russell or whether, as Barry believed, the entire problem would have been overcome had his back four opted to make their stand a little further forward than the edge of their box.
Whatever the merits of the respective cases, it was astonishing that a side which had taken the lead through Pat Morley just before the break, hit the woodwork twice before they scored and had threatened their visitors from every area of the pitch in the first half - Declan Daly at right full back and Patsy Freyne on the left side of central midfield were two of the key influences - had allowed matters to be turned around so completely.
Even during the second period Paul Osam and Eddie Gormley played well below their best and neither of the title holders' wing backs, particularly Trevor Croly, were showing the sort of movement and crossing ability that had contributed so much to Sligo's undoing a week ago. At the heart of the defence, though, the Dubliners, shaken early on by the work-rate of Morley and John Caulfield got well on top, while at the other end it was now they rather than the locals who seemed capable of scoring with every surge forward.
On balance, both managers agreed, a draw would have been the fairer result, "but you won't see me refusing the three points," remarked Buckley afterwards. However the former Athlone boss, who admitted that this ranked up there with last season's cup defeat of Shamrock Rovers at St Mel's Park as a highlight of his managerial career, was careful to point out that he also knows there is still a long road ahead before his side can start celebrating a successful defence of their title.
"The important thing for the moment," he added, "is that we've had a long time of having to sit there in second place, and there's a particular type of pressure in that as well because you're always worrying that you might fall too far behind and leave yourselves with too much to do, or when they slip up and give you chance to make up some ground you won't take it. Well, for the moment at least, we've come through that and now Cork are going to have a taste of what that's like."
Cork City: Mooney; Daly, Coughlan, Hill, Cronin; O'Brien, Flanagan, Freyne, Cahill; Morley, Caulfield. Subs: Barry Murphy for Freyne (58 mins), Dobbs for Caulfield (69 mins), Hartigan for O'Brien (81 mins).
St Patrick's Athletic: Wood; McGuinness, Lynch, Hawkins; Croly, Gormley, Osam, Russell, Doyle; Reilly, Gilzean. Subs: Braithwaite for Gilzean (half-time), Burke for Doyle (70 mins), Campbell for Gormley (87 mins).
Referee: J McDermott (Dublin).
