Caulfield 'delighted' as Cork City notch first win of the season

Cork City won their opening clash of the season against St Mary’s 4-0 at a freezing Mayfield Park. The League of Ireland side rusty after the long off season will feel much better after this 90 minutes work out that will have blown out many of the cobwebs.

In the aftermath of the game, in a much warmer club house, manager John Caulfield told the assembled media of his delight with the performance in a win that will put them playing either Avondale or Blarney United in the semi final of the Munster Senior League.

“I suppose we are delighted with that performance,” said Caulfield, who's beginning his fourth year in the City hotseat.

“We played UCC last week in a friendly and they pushed us and it was a great work out and we had a few trialists in.

“St Mary’s, under Ken (Daly), were very good and for 60 minutes they worked their socks off and had great shape and were doing their best to stop us from scoring.”

Cork City had the fitness advantage over Mary’s owing to their full0time training.

“Overall since we are back since last Monday week and that we have been training twice a day, even this week on Monday and Tuesday we were twice a day.

“The lads put in another good performance with good movement and high energy. Overall as a competitive game I am very happy with it.”

Goals from newcomers Jimmy Keohane and Achille Campion were positives and Caulfield believes those players will add some extra benefit to the team in the season ahead as they hope to go from second to first in the league.

“At training from the first morning you could see them settle in. They are quality players and we needed that. We need players to come in at the level we are currently at.”

Thoughts will now turn to the Waterford United match on Saturday in the RSC where City will field a much-changed side for the match in order to give every player game time.

“We go to Waterford on Saturday and we will change things up. We will give Steven Beattie, Karl Sheppard, Nults (Mark McNulty) a start and a few trialists in as well. We will definitely give guys

game time and keep everybody happy.”

The large crowd on such a cold night pleased Caulfield who thought that the game showed glimpses of what his side can do given their talent.

“It was a great crowd and they all wanted to see the new guys.

“Some of the people who came tonight might not have seen us before and maybe don’t go to Turners Cross but they would have seen the passing and the movement.

“I keep saying that the higher the level you go up the higher the pace and movement is and I am well aware of that from managing in the Munster Senior League.’