AS JOHN CAULFIELD delivers his weekly press briefing at Cork City’s training ground in Bishopstown, the silverware sitting on the shelf to his right serves as a reminder of his team’s most recent victories over their fiercest rivals.
The FAI Cup came back to Leeside in November thanks to Sean Maguire’s extra-time winner at the Aviva Stadium. Last month, a 3-0 triumph at Turner’s Cross gave Caulfield’s side another trophy at Dundalk’s expense — the President’s Cup.
Cork City have subsequently now beaten Dundalk in five of their last six meetings, a run which began when the teams contested the President’s Cup 12 months earlier. Yet the ultimate prize has continued to elude City. It has done since 2005.
Dundalk are chasing their fourth consecutive SSE Airtricity League Premier Division title this season. Another defeat in Cork this Saturday afternoon would put a considerable dent in those ambitions, however, even at this early stage of the campaign.
Coupled with the Lilywhites’ defeat in Derry last week, Cork City’s faultless start means that a sixth successive league win this weekend would put them six points clear at the top. It’s a far cry from where this rivalry stood at the beginning of last season, when City had failed to get the better of the Louth outfit in their 10 previous meetings.
The current rivalry between the two clubs — which began in 2014 when Dundalk ended a 19-year wait for a Premier Division title — has developed into one of the most intense in recent memory in the League of Ireland.
Caulfield believes that his team, having once been inferior, are now neck and neck. However, he knows a league title is required to definitively tip the balance southward. Their only defeat to Dundalk in 2016, a 2-1 loss in October at Oriel Park, cost them last year.
“I think at the start they were a better team than us,” Caulfield says. “For the first season or two they were a better team. I think last year was the first year that I felt we were there or thereabouts with them. It probably showed through the season, there wasn’t much in it.
“Unfortunately that Tuesday night game we lost 2-1, which was probably the league decider. Then we came along and beat them in the [FAI] Cup a few weeks later.”
He adds: “The team believe that we’re better than we were last year. That’s what we need to be. It’s going to be close. They’re tight games and they’re very, very competitive. But I think if you look at it ability-wise, team-wise, the teams are both there or thereabouts. That’s why I think results have changed a little bit.”
In spite of a belief held by some that the departures of Daryl Horgan, Andy Boyle and Ronan Finn could spell the end of Dundalk’s dominance in 2017, Caulfield has a very different take.
Since their breakthrough three years ago, Stephen Kenny’s team have thrived without key players such as Patrick Hoban and Richie Towell. Kenny has brought in the likes of Niclas Vemmelund, Conor Clifford and Michael Duffy this season, and with Patrick McEleney hitting full stride, the Cork City boss believes Dundalk are still the team to beat.
He said: “I think there’s a lot of baloney spoken about them. If you look from where they’ve been, they needed the first league to get the breakthrough — which they did. They lost [Patrick] Hoban, then [David] McMillan comes through and they get [Ciaran] Kilduff. Then they lose [Richie] Towell and they got better without him. Maybe he was a one-man show but they actually got better.
“The fact that they’ve lost Daryl [Horgan] and [Andy] Boyle, and you may say [Ronan] Finn, but if you look at the bigger picture, Finn decided to leave and the other two lads, to be fair, their contracts were up. But they’ve gone the opposite way.
“They’ve brought in Sean Hoare, an Irish U21 international; [Niclas] Vemmelund, the lad from Derry, who’s a decent player; obviously they’ve brought [Conor] Clifford back from England, who has a lot of potential and was very highly-rated; [Michael] Duffy, they paid money to Celtic.
“As we saw in the President’s Cup game when we played them down here, bar Duffy, the other 10 fellas had three league medals around their necks and they played in the Europa League.
“They still have the team that’s been winning for the last three years. They’re still the force, they’re still the team, and while there’s challengers like ourselves and Derry — and maybe to a lesser extent [Shamrock] Rovers, obviously Bray could be there — definitely Dundalk are the team.
“They still have the players, they still have the trophies on the shelf, they’re going for four-in-a-row and I think they must be relishing the fact that people are doubting them. But we haven’t taken our eye off the ball at all. We know how serious they are and we know how serious we have to be if we’re to have a chance of doing anything at the end of the year.”
Turner’s Cross is set to be sold out again for Saturday afternoon’s 3pm kick-off, with City reporting that tickets are shifting as swiftly as they did for last summer’s Europa League clash with KRC Genk. Advance purchases are advised. The Leesiders will be without injured midfielder Greg Bolger, while there are doubts over captain Johnny Dunleavy.
John Caulfield now feels he has the squad to handle the pressure that accompanies challenging for honours at a club like Cork City. Last week may have been evidence of that. His side came from behind to defeat Sligo Rovers at home before defying a below-par performance to get the better of Shamrock Rovers with a late winner in Tallaght.
Similar situations yielded less positive outcomes for Cork City in recent seasons. The latest test of how much progress they’ve made will come when the champions return to Turner’s Cross on Saturday afternoon for another big occasion.
Caulfield: “I keep saying, if you want to be a top player, you have to have the mentality to be a top player and you have to be able to handle it. When you get the praise, it’s good to take it, but you keep your feet on the ground. When you don’t play well, you have to take the criticism. That’s all about mentality and attitude.
“You get a lot of players, and we’ve had a lot of them here, who have been good lads but moved on because they haven’t been able to handle what is in Cork here. Everyday coverage, people in the street knowing about you, the pressure which I keep saying is probably unique to us.
“Maybe it might be similar in clubs like Derry or maybe Sligo to a lesser extent. But here it’s unique because the coverage is phenomenal, everyone knows you, and you must be mentally strong. So from that point of view, we’ve got players into the club over the last 18 months that we feel — as they’ve done by winning the cup — can handle the pressure and go to a different level.
“What do you want to be? Do you want to be playing every week, trying to win a title in front of big crowds and taking a bit of criticism on and off? Or do you want to be playing mid-table and going nowhere?
“We’ve tried to shape the players and the personalities that we’ve brought in are winners and guys who want to win trophies. Thankfully, we’ve assembled a very good team.”
