Dundalk V Cork Tonight October 11, 2016
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Uncategorized.trackback
A massive night tonight in the title race as Dundalk take on Cork City. A win for Cork would take them top although you wouldn’t bet on both sides winning all their games on the run in either.
Dundalk have a crazy number of games to play in the run in. There’s 10 games in for them in October. I remember Rovers in 2011 having a crazy run in too, having to play 9 games in a month, which included trips to Russia and London. What helped Rovers then was the squad depth and their two late signings Rohan Ricketts and Jim Patterson. Ricketts got a vital winner at home against Derry and was a quality player. Dundalk have a better starting 11 , whereas Rover had a better squad back then.
It’s the lack of depth that may cost Dundalk their title. They have a core group of 17 experienced players , whilst Rovers had a group of around 21. Being able to give players a break is needed.
I’m kind of hoping Cork win tonight and win the league as it would stop Dundalk getting another shot at the Champions League, something this side were very unlucky not to qualify for. That dodgy penalty in the Aviva really scuppered their chances of progression to the group stages. I’m hoping Dundalk qualify from the Europa Group stages too this season (just in case anyone thinks I wish them ill will).
Dundalks windfall will hopefully be invested into facilities at Oriel, sustained European success over a number of years and they would be in a different league financially to everyone else.
Interesting too if Horgan gets an International call up, he deserves it. I wonder will they be able to hold on to the squad they have and now they will be able to buy the pick of the league too (although thats not really Stephen Kennys style). Will anyone try and tempt Stephen Kenny away as he will be awfully hard to replace.
Anyway hoping for a good match this evening , a win for Rovers V Dundalk on Friday and an exciting title run in.
As an aside any Shels fans here with opinions on the move to Dalymount? … Looks like they didn’t have much option. Hopefully they can attract crowds in Dalymount and give locals a different team to choose to support 🙂
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Am I right in saying that the redeveloped Dalyer will have an artificial pitch? I do not approve.
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Yes it will have an artificial pitch, presumably to make Dundalk feel more at home for their future European Adventures
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“Hopefully they can attract crowds in Dalymount and give locals a different team to choose to support”
People have been banned for less provocation
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Joking apart, it’s going to be very difficult for Shels to attract support /sponsorship etc from the local area when Bohs would have most of that already.
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Reverse takeover in a few years to make it OBNC, one big northside club. The ShelBohs if you will.
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One of the many FAI ‘plans’ for the league envisaged something like that – a northside ShelBohs and a southside Shamrock Athletic. The logic being that there are too many Dublin clubs and so on. Thing is, football in Ireland is by and large and East coast affair, from Bray to Norht Belfast with half a dozen outposts. if you put the 12 best teams in the whole country in a league, almost all would be within a few miles of the M1/ nordie M1, apart from Derry and Cork
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And Sligo Rovers.
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Good match. Horgan the difference. Some clamour now to get him called up to the Ireland squad.
Can’t see Dundalk winning all their games though.
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Are you worried that the 4 in a row might be under threat, IEL?
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Possibly, funny thing is though that the next stage is going to be very hard.
The current squad is scattered with cast offs with great attitude. I wouldn’t fancy being the person negotiating new contracts as I’m sure they’ll all be looking for hefty increases.
Additions to the squad will have to be really carefully signed and a few wrong ones might upset what they have going on at the moment.
You also have the possibility that some of the players may start to think they are world beaters , like what happened at Rovers under Kenny.
Cork aren’t too far away from them either.
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I’ve seen so little Irish football this season it’s hard to judge – the few Bohs games I’ve got to have been generally quite painful to watch, and the impression of a league going backwards is hard to avoid. But then clearly the town and possibly Cork are able to compete on a European stage
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