John Caulfield: 'The only record I want at the end of the season is the league title'

Cork City moved 12 points clear at the top of the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division with a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Bray Wanderers at Turner's Cross.

Manager John Caulfield said he was delighted with his side’s victory – which also sees them 12 clear of Dundalk – while acknowledging that it was a tough game for his side.

“Yes it was tough, but we knew that all week,” Caulfield said.

“You can see the type of team Bray are. They are scoring goals for fun in the league and they have some phenomenal players: Greene, McCabe and Connolly.

“We are actually disappointed at conceding. The first-half performance was really good. Look at the chances we had: Seanie had two, Shep hit the post and Dooley had a fantastic save from Cherrie. “

Bray have proven too strong for a number of teams this year, and they upped the ante in the second half, but the City defence held firm until late into the game, backed by a vocal support that Caulfield was quick to praise early into his press briefing.

“The second half, to be fair to Bray, as expected they tore back into us but to be fair to the lads they tired a little in the second half but there is a great determination and spirit amongst the lads, with everybody digging out.

“Even the crowd in the second half were phenomenal when they could see that we needed a lift and their pride, passion and noise levels really got us back into it for the final fifteen minutes.

Garry Buckley was a late withdrawal for City in favour of Greg Bolger with injury as Caulfield said that a minor knock prevented him from starting.

“He had a little nick in training yesterday and we gave him until kick off to get ready but he just wasn’t 100%.

“As I keep saying the season is so long that you can’t afford to have a guy missing for four five weeks so from that point of view it was important that we pulled him before the game.”

Conor McCormack has in the past few weeks already won a huge number of fans and Caulfield was again full of praise for the former Derry City man.

“That is why we went after him as he is a man who can play in any number of positions.

“He is a very intelligent player, who sees danger and to be fair to him lots of guys like him don’t get the credit or the limelight that do the dirty work and tonight he was phenomenal.

“In lots of reasons his performance tonight is probably why we won as Greene and McCabe weren’t getting a lot of ball as he snuffed out a lot of the danger particularly in the first half.”

When asked by extratime.ie if he thought his team would be able to beat the record set by Bohemians back in 1924 of 16 consecutive victories, he replied by saying that his aim is the league not records.

“It is immaterial. The record I want at the end of the season is for the boys to win something.

“And as I keep saying, at the end of the day these records don’t count as we are trying for this trophy something that in the clubs history has proven very difficult to do and that is the priority.”