Cork City manager John Caulfield has praised the mentality of his squad as they made it six wins from six at the beginning of the new SSE Airtricity League season after defeating Dundalk at Turners Cross on Saturday afternoon. A first half brace fro
Cork City manager John Caulfield has praised the mentality of his squad as they made it six wins from six at the beginning of the new SSE Airtricity League season after defeating Dundalk at Turners Cross on Saturday afternoon.
A first half brace from Karl Sheppard was enough to see City move six points clear of the champions Dundalk, who responded in vein through a late David McMillan strike.
And speaking to reporters after the game, the Cork boss hailed his sides spirit as well as providing an injury update on the stricken Steven Beattie, who picked up an injury just two days before the match.
“The big thing about this team is that they’ve tremendous energy, tremendous spirit, tremendous determination about them, every week is a different challenge and we have to be ready for it,” enthused Caulfield.
“It was a good three points but the bigger picture, to go into match without the likes of the (Greg) Bolger’s, (Steven) Beattie and (Johnny) Dunleavy, it shows that when you are missing players you need the players that come in to be equally as good as the players who aren’t there.
“That can be the difference, for the first time in a long time we are in there at the top early on but at the moment the league hasn’t even started, overall its three points so of course were happy but we’ll move on to limerick next week.
“If it was the last game of the season we would have taken a chance (on Beattie) but the danger is though is if it acted up he could be for 4 to 6 weeks.
“We need to look at the bigger picture at the moments because there’s a long long way to go in the season.”
