Friday night sees the Cork Derby return to St Colman’s Park as league leaders Cork City face the Rams.
Last time out Ramblers secured a precious three points on Easter Monday, defeating Athlone Town 3-2 thanks to goals from Beineón O’Brien Whitmarsh (2) and Conor Drinan. While the Rams remain eighth in the table, seventh place Bray are now only three points ahead. City themselves are three points clear of second place Galway and come into the game on the back of a 2-1 win at Waterford.
The last time the sides met in Cobh, Ramblers were 1-0 victors thanks to a Jake Hegarty winner in 2021. City were 2-0 winners when the pair met earlier this year at Turners Cross.
Captain John Kavanagh remains injured for Cobh and he’s been joined on the treatment table by Issa Kargbo who went off injured against Athlone. Harlain Mbayo serves a one game suspension having been sent off late on Monday. Dale Holland and Danny O’Connell also look like missing out through injury.
Manager Darren Murphy comes up against a former club of his and spoke to the assembled press earlier this week,
“It’ll be a challenge but we want to go out there and put in a performance. It’s a 90 minute game and anything can happen. Jake and Beineón are working well together, we have talent in the wide areas and across the squad. We have to put them under pressure and when you get that chance it’s important that we take it. We’ll be in front of a big home crowd again on Friday and our lads are starting to believe in themselves.
Anyone that’s interested in football around Cork will be there. It’s a huge game and you’ll get people coming out for a great night of football.”
Striker Jake Hegarty also gave his views, ahead of a fixture in which he scored the winner in last season,
“These games don’t come around too often. We all know what it felt like to beat them last year. We owe them one, we didn’t perform to our best the last time we met. It’ll be a physical game, it’ll be intense, lively and how a derby should be. We’ll be well up for it.”
Kick-off on Friday night in St Colman’s Park at 19:45.
Online tickets are available to purchase here https://www.klubfunder.com/Clubs/Cobh_Ramblers_FC/TicketSales?fbclid=IwAR36dqL7y-GjoWlZjMOAA65S-7L24ePT6Vb4D3X6UcElwvLCoP8rVuuPs00
The game will be streamed live on LOITV here https://www.loitv.ie/en-int/playerpage/1325202
