Cork City 0
Derry City 0
Paul Dollery reports from Turner’s Cross
THIRD TIME’S A charm for Cork City.
The 2017 season hadn’t yet reached its midway point by the time they put one hand on the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division trophy, but John Caulfield’s side were finally crowned champions tonight with two games to spare.
It’s the club’s third top-flight title in their 33-year history, and they needed three attempts to seal the deal. A late goal from Robbie Benson of defending champions Dundalk denied them here at Turner’s Cross three weeks ago. City were then unable to find the breakthrough they needed in Friday’s goalless draw away to Bohemians.
They took a six-point lead over Dundalk into tonight’s game against Derry City, so only a draw was required to finally bring this foregone conclusion of a title race to an end. And that’s exactly what they got, with neither team able to hit the net over the course of an unremarkable 90 minutes.
The Leesiders blitzed all before them for the first two-thirds of this campaign, but they’ve limped towards the finish line in unconvincing fashion since leading goalscorer Sean Maguire left for Preston North End in July. Prior to tonight, they took just two points from their previous four league games.
Those recent struggles have left Cork fans frustrated, but they’ll be forgotten about tonight as they bask in the glory of being able to refer to their team as champions of Ireland for the first time since 2005.
Derry were also the opponents here on that November night 12 years ago, although this climax wasn’t quite as dramatic as its predecessor. On that occasion, a 2-0 win saw Cork overtake Derry — who held a one-point lead — on the final day of the season.
The contrasting manner of this conclusion is likely to matter little to the 2017 champions, for whom persistence has finally paid off. After three consecutive seasons of playing second fiddle to Dundalk, their roles have now been reversed.
The form they’ve produced lately won’t be good enough to keep them at the summit, but the legacy of this season for John Caulfield’s team will be the 22-game undefeated run they embarked on from the outset, when they dropped just two points from a possible 66.
Tonight’s game eventually went ahead at the third time of asking. It was initially rescheduled from last Saturday week to last night due to the involvement of Ryan Delaney and Ronan Curtis with the Republic of Ireland U21s. Storm Ophelia then forced another postponement for a further 24 hours.
The game was threatened again yesterday when the heavy winds wrenched the roof from a substantial section of the Derrynane Stand at Turner’s Cross. But Corkonians weren’t prepared to wait much longer for their coronation and the damage was cleared in time for tonight’s 7.20pm kick-off.
With the stand subsequently closed, a reduced but sold-out attendance witnessed the game, the majority of which delivered little in terms of entertainment for RTÉ 2 viewers and the 5,857 spectators inside the ground.
Derry came closest to breaking the deadlock in the opening 45 minutes, with a Rory Patterson chip forcing Mark McNulty to tip the ball over. Aaron McEneff presented Harry Monaghan with a good chance moments later but he headed off target after finding himself on the end of the former Tottenham trainee’s corner.
As the interval approached, Gerard Doherty had to make a couple of saves from Cork City midfielder Garry Buckley but both stops were comfortable for the veteran Derry goalkeeper.
The visitors offered little going forward in the second half, and while Cork enjoyed the lion’s share of the possession they struggled to create anything that might alter the scoreline. Nevertheless, that was ultimately enough to get them over the line.
To get there, they defied the loss of their club captain, Johnny Dunleavy, to injury in June, before Irish international striker Sean Maguire and left-back Kevin O’Connor departed for England a month later. Despite those setbacks, Cork City have managed to leapfrog a Dundalk side regarded as arguably the greatest the League of Ireland has produced.
Tonight’s performance may not have been worthy of champions, but after making a start to the season which hasn’t been bettered in almost a century, they’ve more than earned the right to savour that success.
Cork City: Mark McNulty; Steven Beattie (Conor McCarthy, 70), Alan Bennett, Ryan Delaney, Shane Griffin; Conor McCormack, Gearoid Morrissey; Jimmy Keohane, Garry Buckley, Stephen Dooley (Kieran Sadlier, 61); Karl Sheppard (Achille Campion, 90).
Derry City: Gerard Doherty; Conor McDermott, Aaron Barry, Darren Cole, Dean Jarvis (Nicky Low, 77); Harry Monaghan, Aaron McEneff; Ben Doherty, Barry McNamee, Ronan Curtis; Ronan Curtis.
Referee: Ray Matthews
Spot on.
I share the undercooked concern. Choose close to full team, rest anyone with a niggle or still jaded from last weeks heat. Warm ups are over, time to build momentum.
Murray; first of all, I have really enjoyed the podcasts so far from France, so thank you for that.
My amateur opinion is that they should go full strength and treat the SA game like a final. Even if it’s a narrow loss, they’ll know that they’re close to the standard required to win the competition. If they win, then the belief will become huge. You have to bear in mind that Ireland have had some less good performances last Autumn and in the 6N, but they’re kept winning and so surely they have that winning mindset. This is pretty rare and the winning run is worth fighting for.
One question for you would be about training. I’d be happy if they were having a few savage full contact sessions, as these may be tougher than a match against a tier 2 nation, but the squad size is restricted so this may not be possible. Would this be another argument for going full strength against Tonga? I’d really like to see the line out attack come back and to deny Tonga from scoring a try.
Maybe the answer to this in 4 years is to line up top opposition in friendlies leading into the world cup. I get they need to get the A team up to 100% preperation firing for the SA game but at the expense of picking up injuries again the minnows before then is a risky plan…
@Stuart: You are probably right… but I think the IRFU found it difficult to line up a game against other tier 1 nations. The England game was probably lined up from 4 years ago. Maybe they left it too late to arrange the others and it wouldn’t be extraordinary to think that they were disorganised or complacent.
@Stuart: apparently other top tier nations turned down playing against Ireland in the summer internationals. Not sure if they left it too late or if other teams felt it would show their hand too much.
In all likelihood yourself and the others on media duties are aware of the team (as normal) but cannot spell it out BUT you’re trying to slowly row your way back from the, way off, potential team you posted a few days ago…. Nice try. It’ll be about 12 from first 15 and Big Joe may be on his way to being first 15 with anyone carrying minor niggle sitting it out. Murray knew a few weeks ago Big Joe would get his shot
Are we not finding excuses to talk ourselves into the very same situation that killed us in previous world cups – ie no trust in the wider squad and thereby overloading the core group? What you are saying, Murray, is that should Ireland win the WC, they would play basically the same team for 6 matches in a row (with only minor alterations from the remaining 7th game). That’s a tough message to the squad and it does not fit the McCloskey inclusion.
@John Morris: nah, I dont think so. We played a weakened team vs Japan 4 yrs ago and look what happened. Plus we play our best team in 6 nations each game for most part with slight adjustments for Italy. Look at what southern hemisphere do – play their strongest team pretty much for rugby championship and some warm ups. And they win every world cup except 1. I think Murray’s article is very well put together and I would agree full strength is required. Its not equal game time for all, go games style. These are fully grown men playing professional sport so get on with it. They;; be called upon if injury strikes. Thats the idea of a squad of grown men
Gonna be an interesting call, they can probably win with a 2nd string side but agree we should put out close to our strongest . Only player I would definitely look to leave out from the 23 is Porter and keep him fresh for SA. We can bring in the likes of Baird , Henderson, Henshaw , McCloskey and Byrne (sub) and steam roll Tonga
@Owen ODonoghue: Spot on about Porter. He is the one player we cannot afford to lose to injury. Playing against SA without him would be scary.
@Owen ODonoghue: Getting hard to see Byrne in the mix, no doubt he’ll be thereabouts for this game tho.
We’re at risk of Eddie O’Sullivan 2007 territory here by playing the same team every weekend. Given the likely hard slog against Scotland and every weekend thereafter they need to rotate this weekend