Caulfield thrilled as City win 'dangerous game'

Before Friday’s game, Cork City manager John Caulfield was insisting that his side was in for a tough game against Drogheda United, and when Extratime.ie caught up with him after seeing his side win 3-1 - he knew he had been right.

“It was a very difficult game, but a smashing win. Absolutely thrilled. I keep saying these games are very dangerous games. You could see right through the build-up.

“The crowd came out in force but they expected to be entertained. Noise levels weren’t in the game early on. People came out and sat back and came out to be entertained and wanted the players to get them going. Compare that to Rovers when they were singing half an hour before we came out for the match. So I keep saying these games are very difficult and the same three points are on offer.

“Drogheda have been around for years, they have a tremendous record in the cups and they are doing very well in the league. We are a new team, we’re building. I always said it was going to be difficult.

“In the first half we slightly changed the team, we brought in Anthony but it didn’t work. He didn’t look sharp and we had to rectify it and change the system. Obviously it was crucial that they missed the penalty because we gave away very soft penalty.

“We went in at half time nil all and it gave us a chance to re-jig things and we were much much better in the second half.”

For the second week in a row, Caulfield made a half time substitute – this time withdrawing Anthony Elding for former Limerick midfielder David O’Leary. The substitution clearly worked as Mark O’Sullivan reverted to a familiar role as a lone striker which led to his side scoring three second half goals.

“It did, I suppose there’s no reason why the other system shouldn’t have worked either because we did a lot of work on it during the week. It just looked like we didn’t work hard enough. We were just casual and we weren’t closing down quick enough. Up front we were very poor.

“Whether it was a fact that there was a big crowd and the lads thought that it was going to be easy, maybe with the big crowd some of them were nervous. We’re going to have to analyse it but certainly the second half was a much better performance.”

One forced change for the Leesiders was the absence of Brian Lenihan who has been a revelation at right back this season. Lenihan missed out with a tweaked hamstring and Caulfield says it is too early to say whether he will make it or not for Monday’s game against UCD.

The result on Friday night, combined with Ronan Finn’s late equaliser in Oriel Park, means that the Rebel Army return to the top of the table and even have a game in hand over their rivals. Not for the first time this season, Caulfield wasn’t reading much into his side’s league position.

“Doesn’t matter. Being honest, I keep saying I don’t look for any results. It’s the start of the league campaign and all we can control is our own game and our own performances. Let the other games will look after themselves.

“The most important thing for us is to hang in there, and if we can stay in there until the mid-point, then we’re well capable of hanging in there until the end of the season in my opinion. What we can’t do at the moment is drop points and give away points, particularly in games that you need to win if you want to stay in the top three or four.”

When it came to analysing the game itself, the former striker was glad to again see goals come from different parts of the team. In particular, Garry Buckley was clinical in the box when he gave the Leesiders a 2-1 advantage and Caulfield himself was impressed with the midfielders technique.

“To be fair to Garry, it might have looked easy but it was a very difficult goal because when it broke to him it was high up. He had to control the goal and I thought it was a great finish because he was under pressure. A striker’s finish because most fellas would have put it over the crossbar. I probably would have put it over myself, so I was damn glad he put it into the net.”

Other players to attract praise from their manager were substitutes O’Leary and Darren Murphy who came off the bench and helped Cork City to get a hold of the game.

“I thought O’Leary and Murphy were brilliant, O’Leary in particular. He came in and he did great. He’ll have been disappointed that he was taken off last week, but I felt that things weren’t going well for him. We had a good chat during the week and he worked hard and I thought tonight he looked sharp and was good.

“I thought Darren Murphy came in and was probably a bit disappointed he was left out from last week but I thought he showed great attitude. That’s what we need in the club and that’s what we need in the team.”

The club has had a difficult time with injuries of late, and there was to be mixed news for Cork City fans when Extratime.ie asked Caulfield if we could expect to see Danny Morrissey back out on the pitch soon.

“He’s still a long long way off. This lad has got injured on the 10^th of January. He was there for three days of pre-season and he has a lot of work to do to get to that level - trying to stay top of the table and playing top teams.

“We’re hoping he’ll be out with us within about a week and a half. Then I think, being realistic about it, I think if I have him back after the mid-season break we’ll be doing well.

“The problem is not having him back, it’s the fact that he’s been out injured for three months or three and a half months so he needs to probably three or four weeks training with us even to get back to the speed.

“It’ll be great to have him back but the most important thing when he’s coming back is that he doesn’t get injured and we take him slowly and recover. Being realistic, I think the halfway point…if we have him back after that I’d be happy enough.

“You can even see with Elding tonight. He’s been out a long time and the game totally passed him by. We took a bit of a gamble with him. We thought maybe during the week that it might work. We knew his match fitness wasn’t that great. We thought maybe we would have a few chances, but we just couldn’t get the ball [to him].

“To be fair to him, maybe I was wrong to play him and maybe he needs a few weeks hard training.”

Next up for Cork City is a trip to the Belfield Bowl to take on UCD, and Caulfield insists that it is not necessarily the case that he will shuffle his deck for what has been a difficult fixture for City in recent years.

“You like to change things up at times, but you don’t change things up for the sake of changing up. At the end of the day we have to go to UCD and I didn’t realise but we haven’t one at their ground for two or three seasons. Even in my day it was one of the worst venues to go to because it’s like an amateur ground.

“I don’t mean to disrespect UCD because UCD are a fantastic club, but I just mean you’re playing a game out in a field with a bit of a fence around it. Unfortunately we haven’t adapted to that pitch in a long long time and it’s a very tricky game.

“At the same time the most important thing for me and the management team is that we pick the team that can get the three points on Monday.”