Caulfield hails fantastic Cork win.

Cork City manager John Caulfield spoke to extratime.ie following his side’s 2-1 victory over Drogheda United that maintains his side’s chance of success at the end of the season.

“It was a fantastic three points, I thought we started well, some of the home games recently we haven’t come out of the blocks well but tonight we did. We played very well. We had to make two changes due to losing Colin and Gearóid our engine room of the season. But the lads we brought in they were outstanding. We played some smashing football.”

Caulfield talked about how the game changed with the sending off of Gavin Brennan in the second half for a horrific tackle on Josh O’Shea.

“Brennan got sent off for a very bad challenge and really you couldn’t see Drogheda coming back into the match and we were just kamikaze defending at the back and gave away an unbelievable soft goal and all of a sudden for the last ten minutes we were on the back foot”.

David O’Leary and John Kavanagh made their first start in a number of weeks for Cork City and he praised them for their efforts coming into the squad in place of Colin Healy and Gearóid Morrissey.

“Yes it was very hard. Our team has been so consistent all year that it’s been hard for the lads on the bench to come in and stamp their authority on the team. Dave hadn’t played 90 minutes in a long time and it was brilliant for him, he worked really hard and played well. Johnny on the other hand is one of those players who can play anywhere

John Dunleavy scored his first goal of the season after 13 minutes and Caulfield said he was pleased by it but was also keen to praise the team for their performance.

“Johnny can play in a variety of positions and we were telling him to drive through the middle as he’s a speedy player and take a few shots. So it’s ironic enough that he opened the scoring.

He revealed that Colin Healy will be back for the away trip to UCD next Friday night while his midfield partner Gearóid Morrissey is less certain as he’ll be going for a scan on Monday to assess his injury.

“He’s going for a scan on Monday having hurt a medial ligament. Hopefully he’ll be back next Friday but it’s probably 50/50 at this stage.

City’s manager’s thoughts are firmly on his squad with him saying “Maybe something will happen with Dundalk maybe something won’t but at least tonight we qualified for Europe which is a fantastic achievement for the club and now roll on next Friday vs. UCD which again will be another difficult match”.

He was asked by a member of the media “With the signing of John Dunleavy is it important to keep the core of the side together for next season?” He replied back to the question saying “Why would anybody down here want to play for anybody else. Just look at the support we’re a proper league of Ireland support. League of Ireland is massive in Cork. The league is nothing without us in that you need a strong Cork, Sligo and Derry for the league. Play in front of three, four, five thousand fans”.

Cork City will go down fighting for this title until the last day of the season under Caulfield and this looks to be the way it will all pan out.