Daryl Horgan stars as Dundalk hit Cork for five

Dundalk kept their slim European hopes alive and eased the pressure on boss Stephen O'Donnell with a record-breaking win over a bitterly disappointing Cork City side at Oriel Park.

Former Republic of Ireland international Daryl Horgan, who scored 19 goals in 76 appearances for Cork in his spell at Turner’s Cross over a decade ago, proved the star of the show with the assist for Hayden Muller’s opener.

He then scored the second himself before seeing his header turned into the net by Cian Coleman to leave the Louth men sitting pretty at 3-0 up at half-time.

Sam Durrant and John Martin then completed the rout with further goals in the second half to give O’Donnell a much-needed win on the back of three disappointing defeats in-a-row, including a 4-0 FAI Cup thumping away to Galway Utd 10 days ago.

While the Lilywhites will face much tougher tests than this, the result keeps them in contention for a European place as they sit just three points behind Bohemians in fifth and four off Shelbourne in fourth - both of whom they still have to face in the closing five matches of the campaign.

For Cork City and Liam Buckley, this was as bad as they have been in some time. They needed to win this game in hand to keep the pressure on Sligo Rovers, who now sit nine points clear of them with just five games to go.

That means a relegation play-off is looking almost inevitable for last season’s First Division winners, but they’ll need to find form from somewhere if they’re to avoid an immediate return to the lower ranks.

Having flashed a shot wide on the quarter-hour mark, Horgan then turned provider for the game's opening goal on 18 minutes when his free kick from the left picked out Muller, who got up above Ally Gilchrist to head home just his