[ad_1]
If most things around the ghostly Turner’s Cross on Tuesday night felt surreal, the plight of its tenants, Cork City, is desperate for authenticity. The numbers don’t lie. Ten losses in 15 games, the last one against champions Dundalk delivering some persuasive characteristics that a new coach like Colin Healy would demand, but also the troubling traits one expects from a team rooted in the background of the Premier Division.
Cork City has three games left to shake off the relegation straitjacket, and unless Healy can effect a surprising metamorphosis in the coming weeks, the big escape will come via a tiebreaker against a first division promotion candidate. , if it does.
How it has come to this for a club that found its level challenging at the sharp end of the table is a matter of finger-pointing intrigue and tough financial questions. The city’s decline has been as rapid as it is inexplicable, but until the club’s hierarchy, its members, management, and players have achieved a safe distance from this looming iceberg, those inquisitions are best parked.
“You keep getting hit, but you have to keep going, right?” Colin Healy shrugged after Tuesday’s loss. “You get hits, (but) are you going to say ‘that’s enough for me’? Where are you going to go in life with that? You keep getting up and working hard. Results with change, believe me. “They will have to change and fast. Cork entertains Waterford on Saturday in a Munster derby that has few equals in terms of implications for Cork.” It’s a very, very important game, “Healy agreed. They are behind. Finn Harps’s second by two points and they’ve played one more game. The city visits Sligo and entertains Derry in their last two games. Two very different scenarios could emerge from the final game.
If City somehow avoid relegation, it is certainly a more attractive takeover proposition for British businessman Trevor Hemmings, owner of Preston North End. The Board of Foras, the Supporters Trust that currently owns the club, will vote on Hemmings’ proposal at the end of this month, aware that it has already paid an alleged € 500,000 instead of the sale clauses of former City players and now Irish internationals Seanie Maguire and Alan Browne.
If Cork are relegated, and in a one-off tiebreaker in a neutral venue, it is not hard to imagine, the club would face different challenges and have time and reason to recalibrate, which may not be a bad thing.
Hemming’s generosity has given Cork financial breathing space, whatever the price tag may be. Due to the short season and COVID-19 payments, the spending has not been as exhausting as in the regular season. A lower cost foundation, some valuable experience added to the Foras board, and a sense of renewal could create time and space for a well-intentioned and structured local consortium to come call. Not that there have been many sugar daddies in the history of Cork football, at least not a few that can be taken seriously. Any cursory inspection of the financial health of gambling in the second city would conclude that creating and maintaining a successful business model has been, and continues to be, a difficult needle to thread.
Football in Leeside has reeled into instability more than once, but such a demoralizing sight seemed a long way off when Premier League champions and FAI Cup winners were crowned with John Caulfield three years ago. The surprise here is not that Cork City is in trouble; It is how precipitous the fall has been.
None of that is Healy’s priority at the moment. Even in the two days since the loss to Bohs in Dublin, his coaching staff (which featured the return of John Cotter on Tuesday night) have applied a sense of rigor and structure. Yet Cork City have scored just eight goals in this truncated campaign and at no point in their 2-0 loss to Dundalk was there strength or power in their efforts. Thanks to lone striker Deshane Dalling, who tried in vain to buy time for her colleagues to get through halfway, but such forays were rare.
It was a performance, Healy’s first at home, full of work and not a little defensive form, but given how little they owned and controlled after halftime, 90 minutes was always going to be a push.
It would be cheap and easy to say that goalkeeper Liam Bossin’s flap on a 76-minute cross down the left wing that led to Patrick Hoban’s first goal was the trigger for Cork’s demise. At the time, the hosts were being tossed left to right, they were infrequent visitors in the middle of Dundalk and had spent the best they could.
Healy prepared conservatively: “He wasn’t going to start two up against Dundalk, was he?” he reflected afterward, and his bench of five in midfield protected the four determined defenders led by Alan Bennett for the most part for an hour. Uniss Kargbo was euthanized at halftime by hardworking Alec Byrne as City went virtual 5-4-1. Right midfielder Henry Ochieng sank further, either by design or necessity, as Dundalk’s fourth-quarter rise took shape.
Dylan McGlade warned Dundalk goalkeeper Gary Rogers in the hour after cutting from the left flank, but other than that, the champions had no trouble behind midfield. They also had plenty of artillery to unload from the bank, and they got their just reward late.
“They are a very good team,” Healy agreed. “Everybody knows that they could play in two teams. I thought we were in good shape, the guys did what we asked, but we gave away two soft goals.
“We will go again and prepare the boys for Saturday. That is all I ask: give everything you have and see where it takes us. We have good players who are suffering. That shows that they care about the club, all of us. “
“That’s what I learned as a player,” Healy whispered. “You give everything you have, don’t make excuses to anyone. I’m a Cork man, if you don’t want to walk through walls then listen – you’re wasting your time.”
[ad_2]