McNulty now well up for the cup
REACTION
Daire Walsh
IT was a case of mission accomplished for Cork City at Dalymount Park last night, when their 1-0 victory over Bohemians ensured that they finished the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division season in second place.
Although he acknowledges that there is an element of disappointment with the way their title challenge faltered, City netminder Mark McNulty was pleased that they secured the runners-up spot, which puts them in a positive frame of mind before the forthcoming FAI Cup decider against Dundalk.
“Since a couple of weeks ago, obviously, Dundalk are champions and rightly so. This year they were outstanding, but as soon as they were crowned champions, we always wanted to get second place.
Perhaps we were a bit disappointing this year,” McNulty remarked last night.
“Obviously, we wanted to go and try and win the league. Second place, listen.
“Second best team in the country, going into a cup final next week. We can show that we are the best team in the country, and we’ll rock on.”
The prospect of a stalemate was beginning to loom large in the north Dublin venue, but Billy Dennehy’s penalty eventually decided the outcome of the tie.
McNulty felt that City could have been awarded a spot-kick prior to Dennehy’s winner, and he believes they were full value for their victory over Bohs.
“Shep [Karl Sheppard] had a great chance just before half-time.
“I thought personally, myself, Mark [O’Sullivan] should have had two penalties before Billy got his penalty.
“Some good chances, their keeper made one or two good saves.
“I thought we deserved to win the game, and I think we deserved to be second.
“Listen, like I say, we boxed off second, which is what we wanted to do.
“We’ve a cup final to look forward to next week, and we’ll go to try and win that,” McNulty added.