Dunne demanding final push from City

WHEN Cork City boss Tommy Dunne looks at tonight’s meeting with Limerick at Turner’s Cross (7.45pm), he sees not only an EA Sports Cup semi-final but also a contest which is part of a developing battle for southern bragging rights.

“We’re playing for a place in a final and Cork City want these nights back,” says Dunne. “We want it as players and we want it as a club. Over the last number of months I’ve got the impression that Limerick want to be the number one club in Munster. Which is fine. They want to be the big club that goes to the Premier Division from Munster.

“But, to be truthful, the biggest club in Munster is Cork City. That’s the simple fact.

“You can have your money, you can do what you like — we’re the biggest club in Munster.”

Fighting talk from the Dubliner who has made Cork his home, but then City do go into tonight’s game on the back of a resounding league victory which confirmed that the reborn Leeside club is not just trading on tradition these days.

Dunne has no problem in hailing Friday’s 4-1 demolition of First Division leaders Shelbourne as the best he’s seen from his team and also a sign that the Dublin club — even though they’re still seven points clear — won’t have the title race all their own way. “Our last game is against Shels at Tolka,” Dunne observes, “And, okay, maybe the league could be over by then but I have a feeling it’s going to go right to the wire.”

First up though is tonight’s EA Sports Cup semi-final against Limerick, a big occasion made even spicier by the return of new Shannonsiders and City old boys Joe Gamble and Denis Behan to Turner’s Cross.