Cobh are sunk by Killester in the cup
SOCCER
Daire Walsh
THREE second-half goals proved to be the difference at Haddon Park on Saturday, as Cobh Ramblers exited the FAI Cup at the hands of Killester United.
This means that Cobh are without a win from their last four competitive fixtures in all competitions. Ramblers supremo Stephen Henderson isn’t particularly worried about this statistic, but openly admitted that their defeat to the north Dubliners was the most embarrassing moment he has experienced in his own career.
“Two of them were defeats to the top-two teams, Wexford Youths and Finn Harps, and we did really well against them. The problem here is, if you take that kind of performance in against Killester, you win the game. We didn’t, so we have to figure out why we didn’t bring those levels,” Henderson stated.
“This is probably my most embarrassing moment in football. I’m in football a long time, and it’s not the fact that we lost 3-0. It’s how we lost that game, in that second half, that has probably left me embarrassed.”
Henderson was also quick to offer his congratulations to Killester on their victory, which he felt was a fully-deserved one.
“Fair play to Killester. Fully-deserving, the better team on the day. Their front two were very, very good. Their movement was excellent, and obviously their finishing was [excellent]. I can’t remember us having a shot on goal, to be honest with you.”
With several notable absentees from their squad, Cobh were only able to name five suBS, and they received a further blow when captain Kevin Mulcahy was replaced by Ryan Goldsmith on 63 minutes.
Mulcahy had suffered food poisoning the night before the game, and with creative midfielder Shane O’Connor consequently switching to left-back, Henderson accepted that it did alter the shape of the team.
“You have to understand, one of our best players today was Kevin Mulcahy, and Kevin was suffering badly from food poisoning all night. He’s been getting sick all night, and he got sick before we travelled up. Huge credit to the man that he actually came up, but at half-time he started feeling sick again.
“We were very limited in how we could affect the game in a positive way when we lost Kevin, and actually all it did was, we took our most influential forward player [Shane O’Connor], and put him in the back-line,” Henderson added.