Dundalk will be hoping to bounce back to winning ways when they host Cork City at Oriel Park tonight.
After a 1-0 defeat to Bray Wanderers last Friday ended an 11 game unbeaten run, Stephen Kenny’s side have a chance to bounce back with victory over the tabletoppers.
Cork have been the surprise package of the season to date with six wins and three draws from nine outings.
Despite that the Lilywhites will be hopeful of making home advantage count against the Rebels.
Speaking to dundalkfc.com, manager Stephen Kenny said he was pleased with how his side have prepared this week for the big game.
“We have had a full week of training for the first time in a while which was great. There has been a lot of games in a short space of time but we’ve coped well with it.
“Cork City have had a great start to the season and are going well. We have had a great start ourselves. We’re flying and we’re right up there. We had a setback last week in Bray but we’re confident of bouncing back from that.”
Meanwhile, Cork boss John Caulfield told a press conference yesterday (see above) that he is expecting a “very difficult game”.
He said: “Dundalk came second last year and they’ll consider themselves to be one of the big title contenders this year along with Pat’s and Rovers. It’s a huge task for us and obviously going up to their pitch as well, which we haven’t done well on but at the same time we’ve started the season well, the attitude is good and we’ll go up there to see can we get a result.”
Despite criticising the surface at Oriel Park, Caulfield said he would not be using it as an excuse.
“Everyone knows it’s not the real deal but we can’t have an excuse going up there because at the end of the day there’s three points up for grabs. I don’t want to use it as an excuse even though it is a huge advantage to Dundalk.”
