John Cleary: 'I would appeal to the fans to get out and support us on Saturday'

Cork manager John Cleary is confident his side will deliver a big performance this weekend when they take on Kildare in the Allianz Division 2 Football League.

Páirc Uí Rinn is the venue tomorrow with a start time of 5pm in what is the second last game of the regular league campaign.

The Rebels are in with a shout of promotion, but come into this game after losing by 20 points away to Derry.

Cork sit third on eight points after five games, outside the top two on scoring difference.

“It is a good position to be in, at the start of the season, we’d have taken four wins out of five definitely,” Cleary says.

“I suppose realistically we’re still looking maybe for one of the other teams to do us a favour but look, that’ll take care of itself. All we’ve got to do now is, and that’s all we’re doing is concentrating on Kildare here on Saturday and then we’ll have a good idea Saturday night where that’ll leave us going into the last game.

“Realistically we could qualify with ten points and not qualify with 12 points. It’s that kind of season but all we’re doing now is, as I said, taking this game and that’s the only thing on our minds now this week.

“I’ve said before that our league games were a bit front-loaded this time with maybe the easier type games at the start and we had always a notion that this was going to be the way it was going to be.

“We expected Tyrone to be in the mix as well, and so it left us, in our last four games, playing Meath, Derry and Tyrone, so we knew that’s what it was going to be. So, we’re not totally, totally surprised. We’re happy enough to be four out of five at the moment.

“We’ll just see now where the weekend takes us. Meath and Derry don’t have easy games either.” 

Cleary certainly isn’t underestimating the challenge of Kildare this weekend. They might be in poor form given they are just above the drop zone, but they will come down to Leeside fighting for their lives.

“Kildare started off the league very well,” the Castlehaven clubman said.

“They should have beaten Tyrone the first day out. They looked very good in the first couple of games. They had three points on the board pretty quickly. They then came up against maybe the top teams there over the last couple of weeks, you know.

“The last day against Meath, I think they showed maybe a lack of confidence because of the defeats against Derry and Cavan. I think as well, they’ve lost a lot of players through injury. To be fair, they’re down a good few.

“That does tell, and again, you have five matches in six weeks, and if you have guys that are not experienced and the panel is kind of thin, it does definitely affect teams.” 

There was a crowd of 6,223 at the last home game against Meath at Páirc Uí Rinn. The expectation at this point is that the attendance will be lower than that tomorrow.

Cleary though is appealing for the supporters to come out in force in what is undoubtedly a huge game in Cork’s quest to return to Division 1 for the first time since 2016.

“All I’d say is that the fans got us over the line the last day and I’d appeal to them to come out again. Everyone that was here in Páirc Uí Rinn the last day, I’d say really enjoyed the experience and, you know, they could be the difference for us again.

“I would definitely appeal to them and anyone that’s around to get out and support us on Saturday.”