Ramblers manager Gary Hunt hopeful ahead of Cork City clash

COBH Ramblers return to Turner’s Cross tonight for a third time this season, though not as the home side, but rather as visitors to their rivals Cork City for a tough derby in the League of Ireland First Division.

Gary Hunt’s side have had mixed results so far this season, and while at times their performances have been impressive, chance conversion has proved to be a big issue – something that Hunt highlighted in his post-match interview after their draw with Longford.

“I thought we were quite good performance wise, I thought we’d done very well to get back in the game,” Hunt begins. “But there’s a little tad of frustration with us not putting the ball in the net on a few more occasions.

I thought we created some good goalscoring chances today, and we just didn't get the rewards from them.

“I think performances have been good from everybody. It's just as I said, the results. We've drawn a lot of games and we feel that we're leaving some of them behind us.

“We're just trying to get over that at the moment, trying to find a way to win games and even get ourselves ahead in games so we don’t have to constantly come out in the second-half and have to respond to teams.

“Once we find that, I think we’ll be in a better place.

“At the moment it's been okay, we're not overly disappointed but the time will come where we have to start getting results. When the business end of the season comes, we need to be within touching distance of the playoffs.” 

INJURIES

A factor that certainly doesn’t help is the growing list of injuries – as Pierce Phillips, Nolan Evers, Tiernan O’Brien, Mike McCarthy and Liam Kervick all missing Monday’s clash with Longford.

Things went from bad to worse for Ramblers when James O’Leary was withdrawn in the first half with a hamstring issue.

“James is extremely talented when he gets the ball to his feet, but obviously he pulled up on us. We need to assess that now, and we're hoping it's not as bad as first feared.

“He felt a little bit of pain in the hamstring, so he just adds to a list starting to grow there now, so we need to hopefully get some of those boys back and get the competition that we had at the start of the season, with lads fighting for places.

“But that's football, injuries happen, results happen. We're not going to cry over it, we'll just make room for an opportunity for somebody else and hope they take it.” 

With it unlikely that any of those absentees will be available tonight, Ramblers are in a tough spot but remain confident of getting something from the game against their unbeaten rivals.

“It’s a big game for us, the first of four this season against Cork, we're looking forward to it. Obviously Cork are the form team, unbeaten at the moment so we’ll go in and try and maybe change that.

“I think it would be great for the club, for the fans, for us as a group [to win], but as I said already, our performances have been quite good so far, we're just lacking those results.

“Hopefully it's going to be sooner rather than later that we start getting those wins that maybe our chances are worthy of.” Playing at The Cross is hardly unfamiliar territory for Cobh, and it’s something that could provide a subtle boost for the visitors.

“We've played two games there already, a lot of our lads have played for Cork before, and a lot of finals are played there so they’ll be no stranger to the ground.”