Credit:
Cork City -v- Dundalk
- Alan Smith
- Thu, Jun 18 2009
Cork City welcome Dundalk to Turner’s Cross tomorrow night, still looking for their first win of the month. The two sides have only met at the ground twice in the past decade with James Keddy scoring the winner for the Lilywhites in 2001 before they played out a scoreless draw in February 2002.
With both sides far from scoring freely at present, another 0-0 draw is quite possible. Cork have just 18 goals from 16 games yet find themselves just two points behind Bohemians. They’re excellent run through April and May was down to their strength at the back and with Dundalk also poor in front of goal, this game will surely be a low-scoring affair. Dundalk haven’t played out a 0-0 draw since last August, though this maybe worth having a punt on.
The Lilywhites have recorded back-to-back wins for the first time this term, beating Bray 3-0 in the league before knocking Mervue United out of the FAI Cup. Three in a row would be a huge boost for Sean Connor going into the mid-season break. “It’s important that we take a positive result from Cork to keep our momentum going heading into July when we will be able to strengthen the squad,” he said. “It’s obviously going to be very tough, it’s a difficult place to go, Cork are challenging for the title and they will be very keen to get back to winning ways to gain a boost themselves going into the break. But we’ll go there positive and certainly not in fear.”
Cork City were knocked out of the FAI Cup by Sligo Rovers in extra-time after they sides were level after a replay on Tuesday night. It means Cork haven’t won in five, with the last victory against Bray on the 22nd of May. However, Paul Doolin is far from despondent and remains quite confident at this early stage. “The league is over 36 games, not 16, so there is still a long way to go. We have conceded a number of goals in our last few games, and unless we eradicate that, we are not going to win games,” Doolin said.
“If you look back to when we did have a good run earlier in the season, we were not conceding goals and we have to get back to doing that again. Despite our recent run of disappointing results, I still feel that we are in a very good position in the league. We played well against Sligo on Tuesday night, particularly in the first half, and if we play like that again and we cut out conceding goals, we will give ourselves an excellent chance of winning the game,” he added.
Dundalk have no injury concerns, though their squad is threadbare anyway with just 14 senior players now at the club. Meanwhile, Cork will be without Joe Gamble and Robert Mezeckis, who has been back in training, while Davin O’Neill and Billy Dennehy are expected to miss out.
The game in Oriel earlier in the season saw Dundalk squander a lead as a Billy Dennehy influenced Cork scored twice in the final few minutes to take the points and it spurred the Leesiders on during their 11 game unbeaten run. “We had an excellent win over Dundalk earlier in the season and will be looking to repeat that result tomorrow night. That win came early on in the run of wins we put together, but despite their league position, I know Dundalk will be a very tough test for us.”
Extratime.ie Prediction: Cork may win it by a single goal but we’re going for a dull, drab, disappointing 0-0.
About Alan Smith
Alan Smith works as a sub-editor for the Guardian newspaper in London. Originally from Cork, he freelances for several other newspapers and websites. Follow him on twitter @alansmith90.