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Cork City Foras Co-op -v- Athlone Town
- Extratime Team
- Sat, May 29 2010
Cork City Foras Co-op face ninth place Athlone Town this Saturday as they look to maintain their pressure at the top of the Airtricity First Division. (kick-off 5pm)
Cork City FORAS Co-op will be close to full strength. Stephen Mulcahy is expected to be available to manager Tommy Dunne despite picking up a slight knock while in action for the Irish U-23 side during the week. Dave Warren has recovered from a bout of flu and is fit to play, though the game comes a week too soon for Gearóid Morrissey who has returned to training following a groin strain.
City head into the fixture after picking up points against pacesetters Derry City and Waterford United, though Dunne felt that his squad should have collected more than the single point in last weekend's Munster derby.
“Coming to the RSC and playing Waterford, if you said pick up a point you’d be delighted. But, on reflection of the game, we’re a little disappointed with the second half chances that we had and also the goal we conceded was not a good one from our point of view. We’ve got to start converting these draws into wins, but overall we’re pleased with the progress", Tommy Dunne told Extratime.
The club was boosted by news this week that midfielder Shane Duggan has extended his stay with the club until the end of next season and Tommy is confident that the best is yet to come from the Limerick man.
And with the summer transfer window fast approaching, Tommy has been busy looking at a couple of possible new faces for his squad. “We’ve been looking at a few players but people have got to realise that we’re not going to be going out and spending a lot of money. The players that we have, 90% of them have done quite well but we’re looking at four or five different positions that we need to be more competitive with.”
Athlone Town on an indifferent run of form having only gathered 2 points from their last five games while Cork are now 5 unbeaten in their last 5 games gathering 9 points on the way.
Gareth Kenna is out for at least another 3 months after knee surgery. Stephen Place looks like possibly missing the remainder of the season with medial ligament damage. Tom O’Halloran misses out again with his troublesome knee while Des hope is still struggling with his Achilles and calf injury. 17 year old creative midfielder Robbie Benson who suffered a badly damaged ankle during last week’s defeat to Mervue also looks like missing out having sat out training this week.
On the positive note Under 20s player Shane “Mario” Dolan was called into the squad and he may get a chance to make his first team debut having been injured for the best part of the season with a groin problem having returned to training this week
