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Connor happy for welcome relief

Dundalk manager Sean Connor has termed the arrival of this season’s FAI Ford Cup as a “welcome relief” as the Lilywhites look to make it back-to-back wins for the first time since last November when they go head-to-head with First Division Mervue United in the Third Round of the competition at Terryland Park on Friday night (kick-off 7.45pm).

Dundalk come into their first ever meeting with the Galway club on the back of a confidence-boosting and much-needed 3-0 home win over Bray Wanderers last weekend, goals from Chris Turner, Ger Rowe and Tiarnán Mulvenna ending the Lilywhites’ three-game losing streak. Seventh-placed Mervue, on the other hand, suffered a disappointing 2-0 defeat by ten-man Finn Harps in Donegal, although they did win their last home outing, against Limerick a fortnight ago, thanks to Alex Lee’s second-half strike.

Dundalk, who remain in the relegation playoff places despite last Friday’s result, have yet to record successive wins this year. However, Connor knows his side will go close to doing so if they repeat last week’s performance.

“The cup match is a welcome relief,” he said. “This club has a great history in the cup and it would be nice if we could put a cup run together. We know it’s going to be a difficult task but we’ll go there and if we apply ourselves like we did against Bray I think we have every opportunity.”

Dundalk report a clean bill of health for the game with the only absentee being striker Darren Mansaram who serves a one-match ban as a result of accumulating four yellow cards.

While this is Mervue’s first time in the competition, Dundalk are looking to make it to the last 16 for the fifth year running having beaten Monaghan United (7-1), Cobh Ramblers (1-0), Athlone Town (3-0) and Shelbourne (3-0), respectively, at this stage of the competition since 2005 - all, incidentally, at the first time of asking. That is, however, the furthest the Louth club have progressed since winning the trophy for the ninth time back in 2002. It is also now 31 games since Dundalk recorded a scoreless draw - the last such result coming at Bray in this competition on 15 August last year.
 
 
 
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