Caulfield slams Kenny’s penalty protest

John Caulfield has described Stephen Kenny’s complaints about the lack of penalties awarded to his Dundalk side as “an astonishing attack” on match officials in the SSE Airtricity League.

Last week, the Lilywhites manager took to his club’s website to highlight what he called the “huge disparity” between the number of spot-kicks awarded to his side and to Cork City over the past year. Kenny also suggested that match officials need to be more alert to what he believes are “manufactured penalties”, citing Sean Maguire’s winner for City against Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght last month.

“It was an astonishing attack on referees and assistant referees and I’m sure the relevant authorities will deal with it,” said Caulfield.

“You know the stats. How many goals have we scored this season? 26 in ten games. In 2017, we’ve had one penalty.

“There are great guys [referees] out there, everyone is doing their best. Some days you get penalties, some days you don’t, but overall the standard is very good. Certainly, I just read it as an astonishing attack on League of Ireland referees.”

While Kenny’s mood will not have been helped by the awarding of two controversial penalties in Bray’s 3-1 win against Dundalk on Friday night, Caulfield had the satisfaction of seeing his team stretch their lead in the Premier Division to nine points after what he admitted was a hard fought two-nil victory over Bohemians in Dalymount Park.

“We needed a wonderful goal from Shep to get us ahead because we were struggling,” said Caulfield, referring to the spectacular Karl Sheppard volley which gave City the lead before Garry Buckley doubled the lead. “Last week (against Derry) it was champagne football, but sometimes you have to dig it out.”

The only cloud for the leaders on Friday night was the Jimmy Keohane’s dislocated shoulder, but he won’t be the only change in the City line-up for today’s EA Sports Cup game away to Limerick.

“We intend to make lots of changes,” said Caulfield. “I’ve no choice, we had lots of guys on the bench against Bohs and they all need games.”

Kick-off at the Markets Field is at 5pm.

Goals from Rodrigo Tosi and Chris Mulhall, and a second half strike from man-of-the match Chiedoze Ogbene lifted Limerick back up to fourth in the Premier Division with a 3-0 win over Drogheda Utd on Saturday night.

EA Sports Cup second round:

Waterford v Cobh Ramblers, RSC, 3pm, Dundalk v UCD, Oriel Park, 5pm, St. Pat’s v Bray, Richmond Park, 5pm, Finn Harps v Sligo, Finn Park, 6pm, Shelbourne v Longford , Tolka Park, 7pm, Shamrock Rovers v Bohemians, Tallaght 7.30pm, Galway United v Derry City, 7.45pm.