The opportunity for bragging rights awaits
Drogheda’s Conor Keeley and Waterford's Padraig Amond in an aerial battle.
Sullivan and Lambe Park has become a very difficult place for teams to travel to this season for every team in the league. Shamrock Rovers are the only side that have come away from there with all three points so far this season, which highlights how tough Drogheda have been to beat and break down there.
They have a very specific style of play, which suits their team very well, and they carry out the jobs that they are asked to do by their manager and his coaching staff brilliantly.
Many people will criticise their style of play, but I am not one of those. There are plenty of ways to win football matches, and while everyone would love to play like Pep Guardiola’s prime Barcelona side, it is just not feasible for every team to do that.
Once a manager has a group of players who fully buy into the best way for that side to win games, then he is onto a winner. That is exactly how Kevin Doherty has had success with Drogheda since he took over as manager, and it is why they are the reigning FAI Cup champions.
The game itself wasn’t a spectacle by any means, but it was a good performance, especially defensively and from set pieces, which has been our Achilles Heel recently. We limited Drogheda to trying to hit us on the counter, and on the couple of occasions that they did we defended that moment very well too. Our back three on the night were very good, especially our Irish International Andy Boyle, whose experience and voice for us at the back has been really important, especially when he has been fully fit. Boyler is an excellent defender, and he organised our back three brilliantly all night. The two lads playing either side of him were players who aren’t natural centre-backs, but they have taken to it like ducks to water, and their ability on the ball allows them to step in and start attacks from the back for us, which is what we want to do.
The FAI Cup takes centre stage this week as we are in the last sixteen of the competition. We face a trip to Cork City in a Munster derby at Turner's Cross. We face them twice in the space of two weeks, starting with this game, and it is an opportunity for us to get the bragging rights on our neighbours for a couple of weeks at least.
If we can get through this round to the last eight of the competition, we could have a real chance of doing something special this year in the Cup. There are four all-Premier Division ties in the round, with St Patrick’s Athletic vs Shelbourne and the repeat of last year's final, Derry City vs Drogheda United, the pick of the games in this round. Straight away, two very good sides are going out of the competition and with Bohemian playing a rejuvenated Sligo Rovers, there is also another very good side that won’t make it to the last eight.
Cork have had a very difficult season so far, but in their last two games, they have had very good results. They beat Galway in their last home league game, and then last Friday night, they travelled to the Ryan McBride Brandywell and came away from Derry with a clean sheet and a point, which is no mean feat.
We saw up there at the beginning of July just how difficult it was to play against Derry and especially on that pitch, when we were thumped 7-2. To be fair, everything seemed to work well on the night for Derry, and they were in sync with one another all over the pitch, but it just shows how good a result it was for Cork to limit Derry to only two shots on target in the ninety minutes.
The players that Cork City signed in the July window from the UK are getting their match fitness better by the week, and they have had two clean sheets in a row now, which shows just how important match fitness is. We will work extremely hard this week to give ourselves the best chance possible of winning the game and getting into the hat for the next round of the cup.
