Following last weekend’s brilliant 1-0 win at Galway, Ramblers are back home on Saturday night as play-off rivals Cabinteely make the trip to the Great Island.
With just four gameweeks remaining in the First Division, every game is crucial at this stage and this weekend will play a huge role in the promotion race. Ian Turner’s winning goal in Galway has put the Rams right back in contention, on the back of three previous defeats.
Cabinteely come to Cobh on the back of a 5-1 defeat at home to Wexford and have only won once in their past seven outings. Having lead the division for a time, the Dublin side are now fifth, three points ahead of Ramblers.
The South Dublin outfit are unbeaten in five against Cobh and our last win against the side came in May 2018. The Rams are Cabinteely’s most frequent League of Ireland opposition since they entered the league, with the teams meeting on 19 occasions, Cobh winning nine.
On the injury front Ben O’Riordan is unlikely to return from the ankle problem that has kept him out in recent weeks. Darragh Crowley picked up a hamstring knock in the Galway match and is also a doubt. Meanwhile John Kavanagh has a rib issue and will face a fitness test prior to the game.
The scale of this game was something manager Stuart Ashton spoke about in his press conference earlier this week,
“It’s another massive game for us. They all are really at this stage. The teams around us are playing each-other and it’s important for us to take something from the game and make the most of that. If we perform like we did in Galway last week then we give ourselves a great chance.
It won’t be easy. You always know what you’re going to get from Cabinteely. They’re organised under Pat Devlin, they’ll give you a tough game. But they have the nice footballers who can play as well and we have to be up for it on Saturday. It’s coming to the business end of the year and we want to keep going and see where that takes us.Â
You can look at recent games but this league is so topsy turvy that form goes out the window. Cabo were driving the league early on, Galway had their little spell, we had our spell. It’s a crazy league and the form book can be ripped up at this stage. We have to just concentrate on ourselves and if we do that then we can match anyone in this division.”
Our match sponsor on Saturday night is Tennant’s Building Products, while our matchball sponsor is PlayerStatData.
Entry to Saturday night’s game is limited solely to season ticket holders given the current Covid-19 conditions across Cork. We will continue to update supporters on our attendance circumstances as the Covid situation changes.
The game will be streamed live by Relivvit on our YouTube channel “Cobh Ramblers TV”, with donations welcome to cover these streaming costs at our Paypal link
Kick-off on Saturday night is at 19:00.
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