IN A DIFFERENT season, the prospect of facing Cork City in the first round of the FAI Cup would have been a daunting prospect for Cabinteely.
The Rebels have obvious cup pedigree, having won the cup twice in the last three years and having reached the final every year since 2015.
John Cotter’s men will be expected to see off the promotion hopefuls at Stradbrook on Friday night, but for all their recent successes, things have not been rosy at Turner’s Cross this year.
A rocky start to the season led to the departure of John Caulfield and has since culminated in a disappointing European campaign which saw them dumped out of the Europa League by Progrès Niederkorn of Luxembourg.
Scrapping near the foot of the Premier Division, Cork now have a resurgent Finn Harps hot on their heels in the battle to avoid relegation.
Pat Devlin’s Cabo, meanwhile, are on an entirely different trajectory.
Having made history earlier this season by reaching the summit of the First Division for the first time in the club’s existence, the South Dublin side have since come through the last month undefeated with former Bohemians striker Rob Manley leading the line.
They remain in the hunt for a play-off promotion spot and their 3-0 success over Limerick last week set records tumbling.
The victory saw them amass a record points tally in a season (43), record the most league wins in a campaign (12) and most home league victories (7). They also set a club record for the most amount of clean sheets (10) in a season.
“We’ve been underestimated all year,” defender Jack Tuite tells The42.
I was reading reports at the start of the season that said we’d be down the bottom of the table. We know ourselves the quality that we have in the changing room.
“It’ll be the same on Friday night. We want to test ourselves against the best teams in Ireland and Cork are one of those teams. Everyone will expect them to win tomorrow and not give us a chance.
“If we show up and play our best football we’ll no doubt give them a game.”
While Shelbourne sit clear at the summit of the Ireland’s second-tier table, the Dubliner says recent wins – including a massive 2-0 victory over promotion rivals Longford Town – will give Cabo confidence heading into the game.
“We know we have a good run-in now for the last four games in the league. We’re going to push Shels right to the end and at least confirm a play-off spot if we can.
“But this is a good game for us.”
Tuite says Cabo find themselves in a relatively risk-free situation, echoing comments made by Cork defender Shane Griffin this week in the Irish Examiner,
We sort of have a free shot at Cork this week as they’ll be the favourites. We’re looking forward to the challenge of taking them on – they’re a good crowd. They’re a big club.
“They’ve been in the final over the last couple of years. It should be a good game.
If we got them last season we would have been relishing it too, to be able to play against one of the top teams in Ireland.
“This time around and with the season they’re having, it’s a massive game for them because their season is now hanging on a good FAI Cup run.
“There’s lots of quality in the team. Yeah the pressure is on them to beat us but we also have pressure on ourselves in the dressing room.
“It’s on us to show that we can compete with a Premier Division side on Friday night. It might be a free shot but there’s also a lot of pressure on us to go out and perform.”
He continued: “Everyone wants to play Premier Division football and they want to be playing at the highest level they can – whether that’s Ireland or abroad.
“Playing Cork – a team that have been right at the top of Irish football over the last few years – is going to be a good test for us all.
Especially with the play-offs coming up and if we do happen to get a spot, we could end up facing a top division side down the road whether that’s UCD, Finn Harps, Cork or Waterford.”
A stern test awaits Cabinteely tomorrow night. But having beaten every team in the league so far this year – this first team to do so in 2019 – they’ll relish the chance to add another team to that list.
Kick-off in Stradbrook on Friday night is at 7.45pm.