‘Absolutely brilliant’ – Ger Nash hails Cork City support in win over Harps

Cork City came to Ballybofey with questions hanging over them – no away win all season, a Harps side unbeaten at home since May, a cup quarter-final under lights in the wild northwest. They left with all of them answered in emphatic fashion.

Three goals, a clean sheet, and a place in the FAI Cup semi-final, at home against St Pat’s. That’ll do.

The scoreboard says 3-0, but that doesn’t tell you about the stretch where Harps had them hemmed in, or the saves that had to be made, or the defiance that has slowly crept into Ger Nash’s side. This was no cakewalk. But when the chances came, City were ruthless in a way they have too often lacked.

Evan McLoughlin struck early, pouncing on a defensive mix-up, and Seani Maguire killed the contest after 10 minutes, with the ruthless efficiency Nash had been crying out for.

“There was a lot in the game to unpack to be honest. You can look at the score and think it's quite simple, but it was anything but,” Ger Nash said after the win in Ballybofey. “First of all, it's my first experience coming up here on a Friday night.

“It was as wet and windy as I was told it would be and the pitch was everything that I was told it could be.

“We’re just really pleased. The aim of this tonight was to be in a cup semi-final and we are. Obviously a really good start for the game, two really good finishes with Evan [McLoughlin] and Seani [Maguire] and we’ve been working a lot on that this week in training.

“And that partnership, when you put good footballers together, that can happen. There's some good interplay between them and a nice sort of synergy between them. I’m really pleased for Seani, he's been really good in recent weeks and it was a brilliant finish.

“I think we went ahead, and then we took our foot off the accelerator a little bit,” Nash admitted. “Conor Brann made an important save, and that got the fans up.

MOMENTS

“It was the second half I thought they had their moments, but overall I thought we were pretty much in control and probably could have had more on the counterattack.” What stood out as much as the goals or the saves, was the noise from the travelling support.

“I've got to speak about our fans, I thought they were absolutely incredible, the people to come up here and support the team. It's incredible, but they [Harps fans] were also very good, very, noisy, very loud and they supported their team right throughout.”

The win marked progress, but Nash was reluctant to dwell on the milestones – first away victory of the campaign, Harps’ home record snapped.

“I don't go too much into all those things. I've been told about our first away win and all those things. We're a new group we’re not here long. We know what we want to do. The fans again, have been absolutely brilliant. I can't thank them enough.

“When I'm walking down the city, there's a good feeling from people and I think they can see we're trying to do something. We’re fighting, we’re doing everything we can.

“The players are giving me everything. The staff are working really hard behind the scenes. players who aren't playing, are working really hard behind the scenes and everyone is together. That's really important.” But any celebration is short-lived. The Cup has been parked. Reality returns this week in the shape of three league games in eight days, beginning against leaders Shamrock Rovers.

“We know we've lots of work to do, our next week is huge. We've got three league games in a week and it's going to be a huge week in the season for us.”