Caulfield confident in back-up troops

Cork City manager John Caulfield is hopeful the absence of Darren Dennehy and Garry Buckley from Sunday’s trip to face Limerick will prove an opportunity for other squad members.

City travel to Thomond Park aiming to cut SSE Airtricity League Premier Division leaders Dundalk’s lead to three points. While Caulfield must manage without the suspended Dennehy and Buckley, he believes there is sufficient depth in the squad to cope with the losses.

“They’re a centre-half and a central midfielder so obviously they’re losses, but as well as that they’ve scored goals this season,” he said.

“Losing any player through suspension is disappointing, but over the course of a season, when four yellow cards equal a one-game suspension and you’re playing 38 or 40 games, that happens.

“We’ve made provisions and it gives opportunities for other players to come in. We have fellas who are fighting fit and looking to come into contention. To be fair, when lads have come in this season they’ve done fantastic, it shows that we have strength in depth.”

City have the best defensive record in the league this season, conceding 21 goals in 27 games. While proud of that statistic, Caulfield is keen not to get bogged down with it: “It’s something that we tried to address,” he said.

“We didn’t have a settled back five and, in fairness to the guys, they’ve worked really hard. It is impressive but at the same time I don’t want to dwell on it too much.

“We’ve the run-in at the moment and going to somewhere like Thomond Park is difficult, from a crowd point of view and maybe from a pitch point of view after Friday’s rugby match. The wind is always a factor there too so we’re just basically looking to make sure that we get the three points and keep pressure on Dundalk.”

While the Louth side lost to Shamrock Rovers in an FAI Ford Cup quarter-final replay on Monday, Caulfield is reluctant to class them as being in crisis just yet.

“I have no idea!” he laughed.

“All I know is that they have a fantastic team and they’ve done brilliantly all year. In a one-off cup game anything can happen and the main thing for us is that we keep the pressure on.

“We want to make sure that they don’t have the league won before we go there for the last game of the season.”

Meanwhile with Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers contesting the EA Sports Cup Final tomorrow, there are only two games in the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division this evening, as relegation-battling Athlone Town host Bohemians at the Athlone Stadium (7.45pm) while, live on RTÉ Two, Bray Wanderers welcome St Patrick’s Athletic to the Carlisle Grounds (7.05).

In the First Division, Shelbourne face Shamrock Rovers B at Tolka Park (8pm) and Wexford Youths are at home to Waterford United in Ferrycarrig Park (8pm).