Stephen Kenny wary of punishing schedule
Many would say that they’ve already achieved that and more but, as they prepare to host Derry City in an FAI Cup semi-final at Oriel Park tomorrow, Kenny is at pains to stress that, when it comes to the big targets, Dundalk have won nothing yet.
“We could lose tomorrow,” he says. “We’ve a lot still to do to win; the league and the cup and try to qualify out of the group. You could fall short on everything. It can happen. I’m well aware of it.”
He is especially conscious that tomorrow’s cup clash with his former club Derry is just the first game in five to be negotiated before Europa group favourites Zenit come to Tallaght on October 20th.
It’s a punishing schedule which, in Kenny’s words, is “unprecedented in any country.”
And it means, first of all, he will have to give careful consideraton to the extent to which he might rotate his troops for the visit of the Candystripes.
Kenny has long maintained that retaining their league title – and qualifying again for the Champions League – remains the number one priority at Oriel Park but that’s not, he insists, to suggest that Dundalk will countenance giving up on their defence of the FAI Cup.
“As a manager, you have to manage the team and the resources to the best of your ability,” he says.
“You are not going to always get everything right. But I would not be sacrificing anything because it’s just really one game and then we can park it if we get through until the final. And you can’t say you’d rather lose than have a replay, even if that wouldn’t be ideal.”
Of course, all these are nice problems for a team to have, as Thursday night’s skipper in the absence of the suspended Stephen O’Donnell, is happy to make clear.
“We want a slice of everything that’s going, we want a piece of it all,” says Andy Boyle. “It’s all a bonus. But Sunday is the immediate priority because we all want to be back in the Aviva in November to try to defend our trophy.”
Tomorow’s game looks like it will come just a week too soon for Derry captain Ryan McBride who is on the brink of returning to the team after a long injury lay-off. But, in the meantime, he is hoping that Dundalk’s remarkable success in Europe might present an opportunity to his side tomorrow.
“Dundalk are on a different level in my view,” he says, “but I think they might be tired on Sunday and we’ll be fired up and ready to go. So hopefully we go and do a job.”
Looking to make it a repeat pairing of last year’s finalists, Cork City travel to Richmond Park to take on St Patrick’s Athletic in tomorrow’s second semi-final.
“From last year, we said that our aim was to see could we get back to the Aviva and this is an opportunity to do so,” says City boss John Caulfield, who will be without the cup-tied Dave Mulcahy in Inchicore. “I think both semi-finals are intriguing games. Obviously, being drawn away from home is never ideal, and we know we have to go up there and play very well.
“We’re in the last month of the season, we’ve had a fantastic European run, we’re in the cup semi-final and we are still in there in the league, so it is still all to play for and we are hoping for a very strong finish.”
Although they already have the EA Sports Cup in the bag, St Pat’s too are looking for a strong finish to the season, but in their case as a form of redemption after seriously under-performing in the league.
“There’s no point trying to sugar-coat it,” says skipper Ger O’Brien. “In the dressing room there’s certainly nobody thinking that they’ve done okay. We haven’t done enough this season and that should be a given for a club like us. We’ve been poor and we’ve not performed to the level we needed to.
“But, at this moment, we have to concentrate on the games left in the league and this huge cup game tomorrow. We have to make sure we don’t allow the game pass us by. If we turn up then we’ll give ourselves a chance because we know we’re a good side.”
Dundalk v Derry City, Oriel Park, 1.45pm; St. Patrick’s Athletic v Cork City, Richmond Park, 3.55pm.
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