Dunne disgusted with City defence

It would be a grave understatement if you said Cork City boss Tommy Dunne wasn’t annoyed with his own players after Friday night’s defeat to Drogheda United.

The Leesiders had, perhaps unjustifiably, led 2-0 but a mixture of indiscipline from midfielder Shane Duggan to get needlessly sent off and some dreadful defending from the home side, saw Drogheda come back into the game and come away with the points.

“First and foremost, I suppose the main thing is that we couldn’t defend properly and we didn’t defend right from start to finish,” a frustrated Dunne said. “We dodged a bullet in the first half, we should have been 4-2 down only for Mark McNulty to pull of fantastic saves.

“We just hit the self destruct button. Gave away a silly penalty, got a player sent off at a crucial time and conceded bad goals. If we’re going to defend like that then there’s a long season ahead of us.”

The sending off of Duggan, for pushing Brian Gannon despite already winning a free-kick, at 2-2 proved very costly in the end for City, and although the Drogs defender made a meal of the altercation, there was no doubt that the home side’s midfielder had to go.

Dunne didn’t see the incident but from what he was told by his backroom staff, there was little doubt that his player had to receive his marching orders.

“To be truthful, I didn’t see it but from what I’ve been told, if you go in and make contact you’re going to be sent off. It’s as simple as that. The other thing I was told is that the lad (Gannon) went down a bit easily too but at the end of it all that’s his prerogative.

“It’s just indiscipline from our team and there were too many undisciplined times during the game that cost us. We didn’t give ourselves an opportunity to win the match.”

Another turning point was the concession of a penalty which Peter Hynes put away to level the game for Drogs and Dunne was particularly unhappy with the way his experienced left-back Danny Murphy brought Gavin Brennan down to give referee Richie Winter no other option but to point to the spot.

“Naivety from an experienced player? I wouldn’t say it was naivety, I would say it was stupidity more than anything else,” added Dunne. “You stay on your feet in that situation and when you’re giving away bad goals you won’t win many games.

“We need to get ourselves to the reality of the situation. We are in the Premier Division and if you defend shabbily you will be punished.”