St Patricks Athletic vs Cork City

St Patrick’s Athletic welcome Setanta Sports Cup winners Cork City to Richmond Park on Tuesday night (Kick-off 19:45). The game provides Cork City with the opportunity to move into 4th place in the league, leapfrogging Sligo Rovers and Drogheda United in the process. St Pats will be looking for the win to further safeguard 2nd place in the league.

Pats manager Johnny McDonnell believes this game will be a tough challenge for his team, especially as Cork will be on a high after the Cup win on Saturday.

“With Derry beating Galway we will need to be at our best to keep the gap between ourselves and Derry. Cork will be coming here full of confidence on the back of their recent Setanta Cup win so it will be quite a test for us. We have 17 or so fit players to choose from which helps but games with Cork have been very close this season and we can expect another tight one”

Derek O’Brien and Jason Gavin are available again having been cup-tied for the cup semi-final. Noel Haverty joins Gary O’Neill, John Murphy and Stephen Paisley on the injured list.

Cork manager Alan Matthews is eager to push for the highest league win possible. Mathews told CorkCityFC.ie that his now players need to focus on Tuesday’s game as they bid to overtake Sligo once again. The City boss said: “It is imperative that we maintain the high standards that we have set for ourselves this season, and once again look to produce a quality performance as we bid to claim another three points.”

Mathews has no fresh injury concerns after Saturday’s game, so Colin Healy (shoulder) and Cillian Lordan (knee) will again miss out, along with midfielder Darren Murphy who is suspended. Having staged an excellent comeback to lift the Setanta Sports Cup on Saturday night, Mathews said that his side will need to produce another quality performance tomorrow night: “We produced a great performance on Saturday against Glentoran, and if we are to get the result we need against St. Pat’s, we will need to do likewise in Dublin tomorrow night.”

The game kicks off at 19:45.

Extratime.ie Prediction: This is a tough one to call, and when a game is tough to call, a good 1-1 draw is always the safe option to pick. So 1-1 is our prediction for this one.