John Caulfield: Hosting Oman a privilege for Cork City

Cork City manager John Caulfield says it’s “a privilege” for the club to host Oman in a friendly game at Turner’s Cross this evening.

“Opportunities to play against full international teams certainly do not come around too often,” he said.

“We will obviously have a mixture of first-team players and some of our promising U19 players, so it will be interesting to see how they do at this level.

“Due to our European run, we have a busy run ahead of us with a lot of games coming up and we need to have all of our squad available.

“We have some guys in the squad who have been on the bench a lot and, even though they are training hard, the opportunity to play a good quality game will be good for them.

“For our younger players, this is also a good opportunity. While the step-up to first team football from U19s is a very big one, this is a stepping stone in the right direction for them as they continue to work and train with the first team. We will also have two or three players in on trial tonight as well, so it will be a chance to have a look at them in a match situation.”

Caulfield confirmed that some of the senior players who either didn’t play or only came off the bench in Saturday’s 4-1 FAI Cup victory over Longford Town will see action tonight, among them Colin Healy, Gavan Holohan, Dave Mulcahy and Mark O’Sullivan.

Summer signings Eric Grimes and Matthew Connor are expected to split the goalkeeping duties for a game which now has an earlier kick off time of 6.45pm.

Oman, who have been training at Fota Island, are due to play Limerick at the Market’s Field next Friday, August 26, before completing their Irish tour when they travel to Dublin for a friendly against the senior international side at the Aviva Stadium on Wednesday, August 31.