Tale of two cities resumes
Eight consecutive wins have seen the Candystripes go top of the table and, having seen his reshuffled side lose 0-3 to Limerick in the EA Sports Cup on Tuesday night, the City boss knows his side will need to produce a much more positive display tonight.
“It will be a tough game, but with our strongest starting XI out, we’d give anybody a match,” says Dunne.
“It’s something we said in the dressing room on Tuesday night – the Limerick game is over now and we have to get ourselves back moving. We’re lucky it’s a big game. We’ve got to start well and if we do that we should be okay. There’s no excuse for what happened in the first 45 minutes against Limerick. I’m afraid that our strength in depth is not there.”
Fortunately, Dunne is hoping to have a near full-strength panel to select from for a meeting of the two former Premier Division giants which should see the recent dip in attendances at the Cross turned around. The two clubs have already met once this season, drawing 1-1 at the Brandywell on the opening day.
Dave Rogers, Graham Cummins, Shane Duggan and Mark McNulty should all feature from kick-off while Cillian Lordan, Davin O’Neill and Stephen Mulcahy are all expected to be fit despite picking up knocks in the past couple of days. Full-back Uros Hojan, who returned to first-team action against Limerick, is also available.
The bad news however is that, having played just 20 minutes of his club debut in that EA Sports Cup defeat, a groin injury looks like it will rule out Gearoid Morrissey for another short spell. Says Dunne: “I don’t think it’s anything too serious but it will be another couple of weeks before he’s available again. We’re going to have to get him 100% fit before he comes back next time.”
In tonight’s other First Division games, it’s Limerick v Mervue United at Jackman Park (7.45pm), Finn Harps v Longford Town at Finn Park (8pm), Monaghan United v Shelbourne at Gortakeegan (8pm) and Wexford Youths v Waterford United at Ferrycarrig Park (8pm).
In the Premier Division, Galway United travel to Oriel Park boosted by the news that Karl Sheppard has been named the Airtricity/Soccer Writers Association of Ireland Player of the Month for April. The 19-year-old striker netted four goals, striking up a devastating partnership with Anto Flood. Sheppard secured his Player of the Month award with a man of the match performance in Galway’s 3-2 win over Bohemians as he scored twice and won the match-winning penalty.
By contrast, Dundalk boss Ian Foster seems anxious to avoid official brickbats by engaging in a damage limitation exercise after he criticised the FAI on a number of fronts in comments to the media following Dundalk’s 1-0 loss to St Patrick’s Athletic last Friday.
In a statement yesterday, the former Galway manager said: “While a number of points related to my frustration with fixture congestion and the difficulties of adding to a small squad, the thrust of the articles appeared to be strongly critical of the FAI. This was not my intention and is not representative of my views of the FAI or my relationship with its personnel.
“A number of my comments, which were made tongue-in-cheek, were ill judged and may well have caused offence to people who are working hard to improve standards. I regret and apologise if this was the case.”
In tonight’s other Premier Division game, UCD host Shamrock Rovers at the UCD Bowl.
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