Don’t judge City players just yet, says boss Dunne

AS IT was for most of the nearly 4,500 fans present, Friday night at Turner’s Cross was an occasion to savour but a performance and result to forget for Cork City FORAS Co-op manager Tommy Dunne.

“It just showed that football in Cork is still alive and kicking and there is still a future for it but it’s going to take a bit of time, a number of weeks and months, to get things right,” said the new boss, after seeing his side lose 0-2 to Waterford United. “Seeing a crowd like that is encouraging for everybody. But there’s a lot of work to be done. And we shouldn’t be judged on one night, we should be judged over the whole season.”

After the high of that opening day point away to Derry – when, Dunne notes, being away from home meant Cork could afford to get plenty of bodies behind the ball – the manager admits that he was concerned about how the heady mood of expectation surrounding Friday’s homecoming would impact on his predominantly young team.

“We said it before the game but you’re not sure how fellows, especially young players, are going to react in front of a big home crowd,” he said. “It’ll take time for them to get used to that type of thing. But it’s more than that, it’s just that we’re not ready, we’re just not right in how we play, in terms of being organised both defensively and in attack.

“It’s early days and there’s no need to get too worried but we know we’re a good bit off the pace. In the attacking side of our game, we’ve got to get a little bit more fluency. It looked on Friday night like a lot of players didn’t know what to do and where to go. So there’s a bit of coaching to be done. We’ll work hard and try to get things right. There’s a good spirit in the squad but you can lose that if you don’t start to get things right quickly, so we’ve got to start organising ourselves a bit better.”

It was also striking on Friday night just how physically lightweight the Cork team appeared to be.

“Yeah, we are,” Dunne conceded, “and Waterford were a physically strong side with a lot of good technical players as well. They’re a good outfit, there’s no two ways about it. They’re definite contenders. I’d have to say that I’d be surprised if we meet a better side than them this year. Their first goal, the penalty, was a bit dubious but, listen, we were well beaten, we’re not going to make any excuses about it.”

Capping an unhappy night on the pitch for Cork was the red card for Greg O’Halloran for which, according to Dunne, the player only had himself to blame.

“As an experienced player, I think it was poor from his point of view and I’ve said it to him,” said Dunne.

“It was probably out of frustration but at 30 years of age you’ve got to be able to handle that.

“And we really can’t afford to be without experienced players at the moment.”