League the priority for Caulfield & Morrissey

The last place in this year’s EA Sports Cup semi finals was decided last night as Shamrock Rovers beat Cork City 2-0 in Tallaght Stadium – getting revenge for their two league defeats to the Leesiders in the process.

The Rebel Army had gone into the game on the back of a ten game unbeaten run (in all competitions), and when Extratime.ie caught up with manager John Caulfield after the game, the former striker acknowledged that his priorities lay elsewhere as he made a raft of changes while also pointing to the two red cards incidents as decisive.

“Well it’s always disappointing when you lose, but I suppose we made quite a few changes. I felt in the first half, there wasn’t many chances in the game. I think early on we started well and then obviously Garry getting sent off and McCabe for them – the pitch is massive and at ten-v-ten it took a bit of the sting out of the game I felt.

“Nowadays it’s very hard to tell. I know they were touching heads but there was nothing I felt [to be] deliberate. It was just one of those things. Maybe if the referee stood in and gave them a yellow card each, but to be fair Paul is normally a very good ref and I’m not going to get involved in it from that point of view.

“Look it, we gave away a disappointing goal because we were caught out of position. We came in at half time and we changed things. In the second half there wasn’t many chances and we worked very very hard. I suppose the chance was in the last five minutes with Danny’s header. Their keeper made a fantastic save and we possibly could have equalised.

“At the same time it was the League Cup, our priority is to try and qualify for Europe and we have a huge match on Friday night. We had five fellas that didn’t play tonight that’ll play on Friday night and some fellas came on. It’s never nice to lose but when you make five or six changes there is always a danger that will happen.

Indeed it was a game of limited chances, with neither keeper breaking much of a sweat. The opening goal came at a good time for the hosts, minutes before half time, as Ronan Finn saw his initial effort pushed onto the crossbar by Mark McNulty only to tap in the rebound.

Cork City had to wait until the 88^th minute to register their first effort of note as Danny Morrissey rose highest to head Josh O’Shea’s cross from the right at goal. Hoops’ keeper Craig Hyland was equal to it though and spectacularly pushed the effort onto his right hand post. While the City fans were applauding the effort, the striker from Midleton wasn’t happy with it when Extratime.ie caught up to him afterwards.

“I was disappointed it didn’t go in. I should have finished it to be honest so I’m disappointed with myself, but I’ll look onto Bohs and try to get another game off the bench.”

Having burst onto the scene in spectacular fashion with nine league goals last year, the 20 year old spoke to us of a “very frustrating” year so far that has seen his participation limited through injury.

“I think that was only my second competitive game after playing against Mochta’s and this was another cup game, but hopefully I can start coming off the bench and get my fitness up and a few league games in.”

With Rob Lehane being forced off with a first half injury and taken to Tallaght Hospital as a precaution, Cork City fans will be looking to Morrissey to continue his comeback and attempt to replicate some of his 2013 form. We asked him how he felt his comeback was going so far.

“Feeling OK – I’m OK to be on the bench. Training’s going good, I’m doing training all the time and personal training on the fitness. It’s getting there.”

Indeed Cork City have a wealth of options up front these days – in stark contrast to their situation at the start of the season when they only had two fit strikers. Last night saw Caulfield’s men finish with three recognised strikers on the pitch while last Friday they finished the game with four. Despite the array of options, it is Mark O’Sullivan that still continues to lead the line – a perfect foil for a quick striker like Morrissey

“That’s why he sent me on – to run off Marky [O’Sullivan]. Marky’s absolutely outstanding in the air. I think we all see that. We threw all the attacking options we had at it, I think we had only one sub left so he threw me up there but again I’m disappointed with that chance. I should have buried it.

“We can get back to focussing on the league though. We can get over this and get back in training on Wednesday and look onto Bohs on Friday night. There’s another big one then on Friday week with a top of the table clash.”

Manager Caulfield echoed his striker’s sentiments as he looked to Friday’s televised encounter in Dalymount.

“While we’re disappointed going home, at the end of the day it’s the league cup and our priority after last Friday was always next Friday’s match and we need to be ready for that game.”