Denis Behan says FAI Cup final is a 'free hit' for Cork City

Next Sunday, Cork City’s chance arrives. After a league season best forgotten – every metric pointing towards struggle, frustration and eventual relegation – the Rebel Army get one final crack at redemption. One match to pull something shimmering from the wreckage.

If Ger Nash’s team can make the impossible, possible, it would be the sweetest of all.

And so begins the longest, most restless week of their young careers – one part nerves, one part excitement, all funnelled towards the Aviva Stadium and the FAI Cup final against Shamrock Rovers. The build-up can swallow teams whole, but club legend Denis Behan has lived it, felt it, and come out the far side with the FAI Cup.

“That media week can be heavy, really, really heavy,” Behan says. “Because you're thinking about loads of different scenarios, you'll be probed questions, you'll be given more questions, you're trying to give a political answer, you're trying to be as positive as you can be.” 

City’s unusual preparation – relegated almost a month out, free to think only of this day – may yet prove a blessing. Instead of scrapping for survival, they’ve been sharpening minds and bodies for one last swing at glory.

I think the boys have an absolute, completely free hit here.

“They're going in, they've no weight on their shoulders,” Behan remarks. “They can train as they want, they can do what they want, they're going into it with an absolute clean slate. I think the media week, the travel up, everything, when they're that free, they'll take it in their stride.

“But it's brilliant, the media day, yes, obviously you have to make sure you get your training session in, but that whole buzz for that week is phenomenal.” And if they do it? If they pull off the upset and topple the favourites?

“Even for the young team, I know Seani has won a few [FAI Cups], but for the young lads, what it'll do for them throughout their career is crazy. You're forever written into some bit of folklore.

“To end that this year with that kind of a high really gives us a bit of a push for next year, it gives sponsorship help. For the lads, one game, 90 minutes, who knows?

“Rovers are a great outfit, of course they are.

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“But they have an unbelievable chance, genuinely. They're probably in the best position they ever could be, because they've had that big win [against St Pat’s], they have the couple of games then to prepare, these are more or less prep games.

“Let’s call it a spade a spade, they can get everything out, get what they want to work on, and then hit it hard, so for me I think they're going in in an absolute great position.

“We went into that Longford game, massive favourites in our game, and we just about got them.” 

Behan knows what it takes. His goal settled the 2007 final against Longford Town, a day when Cork City were carrying expectation rather than chasing a miracle.

“I think that team, we had an unbelievably talented team that time,” Denis explains. “And for us, after winning the league in 2005, not to win the cup straight after, it was probably a letdown.

“We wanted to make amends and that's where 2007 came in. I was 21-ish, I think.

You take it in but you don't fully take it in.

“I'm going up to the cup final, and it'll be a case of the excitement built around it, where we were kind of in our own little bubble in 2007. We kind of just took it as we'd always be in a cup final, we'd always have wins, we kind of took it as we'd always be there.

“But they don't come around too often. So when you look back on it, even moments like this now, they're unbelievably special.”