Caulfield knows first goal is key to keeping City's Euro dream alive

By Denis Hurley

The importance of scoring first rather than scoring early will be the key instruction Cork City manager John Caulfield will impart to his side ahead of tonight’s Europa League third qualifying round second leg against Rosenborg.

City trail 2-0 from the first leg ahead of the game at Lerkendal Stadion, where they trained last night, having had a gym session upon arrival in Trondheim late on Monday night.

Video sessions have also taken up the time of the squad in Norway, as they seek to learn the lessons of the game at Turner’s Cross last Thursday, when they couldn’t make early possession and territory count before twice being caught by efficient Rosenborg attacks before half-time.

Caulfield accepts an uphill task awaits the Rebel Army — who travelled without defender Alan Bennett after he picked up a knock in Sunday’s FAI Cup win over Home Farm, as well as longer-term absentee Colm Horgan — but he isn’t conceding the tie just yet.

"You can look at it in a number of ways,” he said.

In the home game last week, we were strong at the start, had them under pressure and forced a number of corners, but there was no clear-cut chance.

“They scored two goals, but you probably wouldn’t count either of those as clear-cut either, certainly there would be elements of our defending we wouldn’t be happy with.

“We know we have to score. I don’t think we need to score early, but we have to score first. If you go behind, three goals will still win it for you but that’s going to be really difficult.

“We believe we can score, we’ll look to get into the first 15 or 20 minutes strongly, but we certainly can’t concede and we can’t go hell for leather because they have the capability to pick us off.

“If you score at any point up until the closing stages of the second half, then it’s game on.

That’s not to say we’ll be overly cautious or have a defensive mentality. We’re going out to play positively, we’ve had a good look at last week’s game in terms of trying to cut out our mistakes and we’ve looked at areas where we can attack them.

Caulfield’s biggest selection decisions will be whether to include one or both of midfielder Gearóid Morrissey or winger Kieran Sadlier or to keep faith with the same 10 outfielders that had started the previous five games before he made 10 changes for the cup tie.

Having made changes for the second leg of the Champions League first qualifying round second leg against Legia Warsaw last month, City hit upon a balance which worked with wins over Derry City, Bray Wanderers, and Waterford at home before the 2-0 reversal against Rosenborg last week.

The introduction of Sadlier at half-time provided extra impetus, but Caulfield may feel he is once again better kept as an alternative to bring off the bench.

Rosenborg have Norwegian internationals Pal-Andre Helland and Anders Konradsen available after they missed the first leg.

The reigning Norwegian champions remain second in their domestic league, a point behind Brann, after a 1-1 draw with Stabaek at the weekend and Caulfield is looking to exploit any doubts that that result might have created.

They had a won quite a few games before that,” he said, “and so that might have knocked them a bit. They had kept a very settled side, rotating 12 players, so if they do have a couple of knocks then the guys coming in won’t have played too many games.

“Ultimately, we have to prepare for a game where will be creating chances, we worked a lot on that on Monday before travelling.

“We know that the goals we conceded were soft from our point of view, the kind that we’d rarely give away in the league at home. It wasn’t like us, but that’s the nature of European football, if you lose any bit of concentration then you’re going to be punished.

“The bottom line is that we’re still in the tie and we’ll be looking to keep it alive for as long as we can.”