Mind games
Dundalk’s Kenny brushes off barbs from City rival Caulfield
THEY know the story by now. The week of Dundalk’s fourth successive Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup final meeting with Cork City and the build-up has developed a routine.
The Oriel Park pitch is a hive of activity. Brian Gartland, Sean Gannon, Dane Massey, John Mountney and Ronan Murray are all on duty. Arms folded looking pensive beside the famous old trophy for the photographers. Smouldering looks far into the distance. Sunday certainly seems a long way away right now.
There is plenty of talking to do and some sponsors to appease. A local electrical company corrals the players in front of a box for a 42-inch television — a prize for the man of the match at Aviva Stadium.
To the victor the spoils. And high definition.
Murray is the only Dundalk player here who hasn’t experienced any of this before. The rest have been involved in all three previous battles with Cork.
So, nothing fazes them, least of all manager Stephen Kenny, who smiles when the barbs from opposite number John Caulfield are put to him.
The Premier Division champions are buying players they don’t even need, and monopolising the Dublin market by hoovering up the best talent from the capital, according to the Leesiders’ supremo.
‘We actually have more players from the west of Ireland than we have from Dublin. The west of Ireland is a great market for us,’ Kenny says with a smile.
‘We have players from rural parts of Ireland, Belmullet and Bohola, Loughrea and Salthill and three from Galway. We have four from the north-west as well, in Georgie Kelly (Donegal) and three lads from Derry.
‘We don’t have many Dubs, four or five. All of our players came from clusters mainly, two from Bray, two from UCD, two from Mervue, two from St Patrick’s Athletic, two from Derry. Portadown with Brian Gartland.
‘We’ve not signed any players from the top two clubs, Cork City or Shamrock Rovers. Not signed any. We have all young Irish players who want to get better, that’s really it.’
Kenny continued with his geography defence, citing goalkeeper Gary Rogers, Jamie McGrath, Dylan Connolly and Ross Treacy who all hail from Meath, while midfielder Robbie Benson is an Athlone native.
The Dundalk boss seemed genuinely perplexed by those accusations as well as Cork counterpart Caulfield’s doubts regarding the severity of the ankle injury to Lilywhites’ top scorer Pat Hoban. The Cork manager insisted earlier in the week that he’d make a €100 donation to a local hospice if Hoban didn’t start at Aviva Stadium.
Kenny, who also has concerns over the availability of the influential Benson as a result of a knee injury he picked up a few weeks ago, watched Hoban leave Dalymount Park on crutches on Friday night after the 1-1 draw with Bohemians in the last Premier Division game of the season.
‘We’ll make a decision later in the week. Hopefully he’ll make it. We’re not playing games,’ Kenny insists. ‘He’s obviously hurt himself. In my experience of cup finals, players can often pull through whether they were right or not. But you can’t be sentimental about these things, you have to base your decisions on good medical judgement and your own instincts.’
Hoban has never played at Aviva Stadium. He left Dundalk in 2014 after helping fire the club to the first of four league titles under Kenny, so he missed out on the Europa League adventure and the trilogy of FAI Cup finals with Cork.
The Leesiders now chase their third triumph in a row, unheard of in that part of the country, and the fact that the top two clubs in the country meet in the decider again is not lost on Kenny.
‘I understand the fatigue. I was in two finals with Derry City. We drew 2-2 and lost on penalties in 2008 and two years earlier had won 4-3 against St Pat’s. Eleven goals in two matches. These three matches haven’t been absolute thrillers,’ he accepted.
‘They’ve had a game-plan to sort of stifle and try and keep it tight. We’ve set out to play. They’ve all been a bit different obviously but certainly there hasn’t been the goals scored or the two-all or three-all draws that people like to see in a final. So I can understand that to a degree.
‘But in other ways it’s been quite fascinating. These things are never easy to predict. People love sport and two teams really going at it with a view to trying to win the cup and bring it home. That has its own intrigue.’