Bray Wanderers -v- Cork City

• Finbarr O'Sullivan
• Thu, Oct 08 2009


Friday night sees a clash of two Premier Division strugglers (kick off 7.45pm) at the Carlisle Grounds. Bottom-of-the-table Bray Wanderers are five points adrift of Drogheda United and have a tough job of achieving survival this season, while on the other hand, Cork City are in trouble for off-the- field reasons and uncertainty looms over the future of the Leesiders, with their players currently refusing to train until they are paid.

The hosts go into this game with John Mulroy the only certain casualty. He suffered a hamstring injury in the match against Galway United last week. Bray welcome back Derek Foran, who was suspended last week, and long-term absentee Paul Byrne, who made a substitute appearance in the West.

Eddie Gormley wants his side to adopt a positive mentality as they head into the final six games: "There were some positives we could take from last week's game. We dominated for the last hour, having been disappointed to go two down. We got the goal that got us back into the game and I felt that if we got a second we could have gone on to win the game but bad decision making by us cost us dearly.

"The other big positive for us was that Paul Byrne played for forty minutes having been out for three months and had no reaction. We will be positive going into Friday night. Draws are not much use to us now. We will be going out to win all our games for the remainder of the season.

City go into this game without the trio of Joe Gamble, Stephen O'Donnell and Timmy Kiely. Kiely and Gamble miss out through knee injuries, while O'Donnell is suspended.

Rebels boss Paul Doolin is determined to avoid an upset going into the game: “In the three games we have played Bray so far this season, they have been very tough opponents, and tomorrow will not be any different.

"We played quite well on our last visit to Bray, but at this point in the season you tend to get some unexpected results and we expect a difficult game. It will be tough, but we need the three points and will go there with the intention of winning the game."

Extratime.ie prediction: 1-0 away win.