PERHAPS IT WAS the positioning of the photographers on Monday evening at Tallaght Stadium but only one of the eight crowd picture features a crowd — two Shamrock Rovers fans.
The Hoops were beaten 2-1 by Dundalk in the semi-final of the Setanta Cup earlier this week and just over 1,700 supporters were there to see it. It was under half the number of fans that watched the home side draw with Derry City on the opening day of the Airtricity League final.
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With Linfield and Cliftonville choosing not to take part in the all-Ireland competition, the cup received an early blow. Four teams from Northern Ireland participated in the cup but all were comprehensively beaten. The aggregate scoreline over the quarter final ties was 24-5 to the League of Ireland teams.
Speaking after his side’s win over Rovers, Dundalk boss Stephen Kenny said, “”The crowd tonight wasn’t good. Listen, it obviously needs the FAI and IFA to come together and get a format that is agreeable with all the clubs.”
“It needs a bit of vision and some real planning,” he added, “because potentially it could be a very good competition and it would be a shame to just say ‘right, it didn’t work’ and just consign it to history and do nothing. I know it is not a perfect model at the moment. Far from it. It needs some creative thinking, imagination and the two associations to work with the clubs.”
Six of the 816 fans at The Showgrounds last night celebrate Danny North's goal for Sligo against St Patrick's Athletic. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
Kenny believes the cup’s new knock-out formula is better than the previous, protracted group stages and speculated that winning the Danske Bank League — and its €400,000 winners’ cheque — was a far greater cherry to the likes of Linfield and Cliftonville. The Town manager is keen for the competition to be revived.
“The concept is a good concept,” said Kenny. “I mean Dundalk is only two hours from Coleraine and yet they had only played each other once in 100 years. That is absolutely ludicrous and the only thing stopping that is politics.
It is football politics as well between the two associations. The easy thing to do is to just say, ‘be done with it, cancel it, it is not worth the hassle’. Sometimes you have to be more imaginative in the way you plan it, put more effort into it and the people at the top end of the associations have to get together and not just appoint people to overlook the competition.”
He added, “This could be the last year for all I know. When the Setanta Cup started, there was great optimism about it. It would be a shame to see it go. It doesn’t mean there has to be an All-Ireland league if that is what the clubs in the north don’t want; and some of them don’t. But there could still be an All-Ireland competition of some value and it could be one of the main events in the calendar.”
'This could be the last year for all I know' - Kenny laments Setanta Cup stagnation
PERHAPS IT WAS the positioning of the photographers on Monday evening at Tallaght Stadium but only one of the eight crowd picture features a crowd — two Shamrock Rovers fans.
The Hoops were beaten 2-1 by Dundalk in the semi-final of the Setanta Cup earlier this week and just over 1,700 supporters were there to see it. It was under half the number of fans that watched the home side draw with Derry City on the opening day of the Airtricity League final.
With Linfield and Cliftonville choosing not to take part in the all-Ireland competition, the cup received an early blow. Four teams from Northern Ireland participated in the cup but all were comprehensively beaten. The aggregate scoreline over the quarter final ties was 24-5 to the League of Ireland teams.
Speaking after his side’s win over Rovers, Dundalk boss Stephen Kenny said, “”The crowd tonight wasn’t good. Listen, it obviously needs the FAI and IFA to come together and get a format that is agreeable with all the clubs.”
“It needs a bit of vision and some real planning,” he added, “because potentially it could be a very good competition and it would be a shame to just say ‘right, it didn’t work’ and just consign it to history and do nothing. I know it is not a perfect model at the moment. Far from it. It needs some creative thinking, imagination and the two associations to work with the clubs.”
Kenny believes the cup’s new knock-out formula is better than the previous, protracted group stages and speculated that winning the Danske Bank League — and its €400,000 winners’ cheque — was a far greater cherry to the likes of Linfield and Cliftonville. The Town manager is keen for the competition to be revived.
“The concept is a good concept,” said Kenny. “I mean Dundalk is only two hours from Coleraine and yet they had only played each other once in 100 years. That is absolutely ludicrous and the only thing stopping that is politics.
He added, “This could be the last year for all I know. When the Setanta Cup started, there was great optimism about it. It would be a shame to see it go. It doesn’t mean there has to be an All-Ireland league if that is what the clubs in the north don’t want; and some of them don’t. But there could still be an All-Ireland competition of some value and it could be one of the main events in the calendar.”
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Setanta Sports Cup Football forthright LOI Stephen Kenny Cliftonville Dundalk Linfield Shamrock Rovers