Cooke delighted with Drogs win

Mick Cooke couldn’t hide the delight from his face after Drogheda United came from two goals behind to defeat Cork City at Turner’s Cross on Friday night. The Drogs boss saw his side lose out to Shamrock Rovers on the opening night but he was ecstatic to see his team get their first set of points on the board.

Tiarnan Mulvenna, Peter Hynes and an own goal from Cork City defender Gavin Kavanagh gave Drogs the win after Daryl Horgan and Vinny Sullivan had given the Leesiders a first half lead and although Cooke admitted it was a strange game, he said his resilient side deserved the win.

“Yeah it’s always important to get your first three points on the board and to get them so quick in the second game of the season is good. It was a strange type of game, I felt in the first 15 minutes we could have been two or three up and then to go a goal down, it was totally against the run of play. Then we found ourselves two down but I thought our lads showed great resilience,” Cooke said.

“I would have been happy to have got out of here with a point but to come away with three I’m very happy. Even when we were 2-0 down my belief is that we should always play football and we did very well tonight.”

In terms of the attitude shown from his team in their two games to date, Cooke couldn’t be any happier with his charges’ application and he also feels that not many sides will come from two behind and win at Turner’s Cross this season.

 “Even last week when we were 2-1 down against Shamrock Rovers we showed great resilience and I felt we could have even got a point out of it. But to come from two down and win in Turner’s Cross, there aren’t many teams that will be able to do that this season.”

The reintroduction of Ryan and Gavin Brennan from suspension was a big benefit and both played an important role in the victory, Cooke however says he will have a selection headache for the Louth derby at home to Dundalk next week when Sean Brennan and Eric Foley along with Declan O’Brien all return to the fold.

“Unfortunately I couldn’t include Sean tonight because he has a bit of back problem but if we were 2-1 down with a few minutes to go I would have thrown him in. Next week I’m going to have a huge selection problem because Eric Foley is back from suspension and Sean will be fit.

“It’s a nice problem to have rather than picking a bare eleven. Hopefully I’ll have 22 fit players and it’s a nice problem. Declan should be right next week and we need him because we have a Leinster Senior Cup game on the Monday followed by a League Cup game the following week and we need a squad of 22 to get through the season.”

As for Friday night’s opponents, the United boss reckons Cork will be ‘just fine’ when they settle into the higher tempo of the top tier.

He added: “The game is played at a different tempo in the premier and maybe Tommy needs a few games under his belt, particularly for the players who haven’t played in the premier before. It’s been a tough start for them but they’ll do just fine.”