Sunderland went back to Ireland for the expected Roy Keane love-in against Cobh Ramblers, and managed to get the job done on the pitch as well.

Keano named a very strong XI against the Eircom League’s basement side, with youngster Michael Liddle at left back being the only player not likely to feature when we kick off the Premier League season against Liverpool in a few weeks time. Teemu Tainio was the only one of the new signings to debut from the start, with David Meyler on the bench as Pascal Chimbonda, Nick Colgan and El Hadji Diouf stayed on Wearside.

The Lads took the lead almost immediately, with a forward ball from Kieran Richardson catching out Cobh’s offside trap, allowing Daryl Murphy to nick in and slot the ball beyond James McCarthy in the third minute.

Some good attacking play ensued, but with only one striker up front (Why Keano, Why?) we could only watch Murphy, Stokes and Richardson come tantalisingly close as we never looked in any real danger.

Roy O’Donovan made his return to Cork at half time, as Keano also brought on youngster Nathan Luscombe for the second half, and within minutes we’d doubled our lead when Andy Reid combined with Anthony Stokes, whose scuffed cross went in for an extremely lucky goal (so much so that Stokes didn’t even bother celebrating).

Luscombe nearly repeated the feat moments later when his cross had to be hacked away from the line as our new-look two man attack threatened to tear Cobh to pieces, as the hosts found themselves having to rely on charity for their efforts.

The amusingly named Max Cream (who’d come on at the end of the first half for Graham Cummins) not-so-convincingly fell to the ground as Darren Ward attempted to recover his own poor clearance. Somehow the referee saw that as a penalty, but Kevin Murray’s spot kick was aimed straight at Ward.

After that calamity, we increased our lead even more when Stokes turned in Jack Colback’s left wing cross, before Roy O’Donovan wrapped up the scoring in the dying minutes in front of his former stomping crowd with a low shot that beat Cobh’s sub goalkeeper.

ALS Man of the Match: Anthony Stokes, two goals, although he’ll never repeat the first one again!

Final Score: 4-0

Ian Hamilton

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