Cork City manager John Caulfield is ready to put his faith in youth when Wexford travel to Turner’s Cross tonight for their final home game of the season.
Cork’s title challenge has faltered in recent weeks and Dundalk’s victory over Bohemians at the weekend sealed their third consecutive SSE Airtricity League, leaving attentions to quickly turn to the Cup Final against the Lilywhites.
Before that, however, are two league matches, starting tonight with the visit of Shane Keegan’s side who sit second-from-bottom.
Wexford Youths come into the game on the back of a 0-0 draw with Finn Harps and picked up a point on Leeside in April, with City winning 1-0 in Ferrycarrig Park in July.
Greg Bolger, Garry Buckley, Kenny Browne and Steven Beattie will all miss out through suspension for accumulation of yellow cards, as will long-term absentees Alan Smith and John Dunleavy.
Caulfield has confirmed that Chiedozie Ogbene, Conor McCarthy and Cian Coleman have all come into the squad from the Under-19s and says competition for places is strong.
“Everyone is competing to see if they can make the cup final squad,” he told the club website.
“We are trying to keep the squad fresh and give the lads who played eight games in the last three and a half weeks a chance to recover, while giving game time to the lads coming in, so they can get up to full match fitness.”
Caulfield hopes to sign off on a positive note in front of the home supporters and is predicting that Wexford will throw caution to the wind in light of their position in the table.
“It is our last home game of the season. Wexford have to win to have any chance of avoiding the play-off, so it changes the type of game; normally Wexford would sit back and try to hit you on the counter-attack, but I expect it to be very open,” he said.
“With it being our last home game, we want to win in front of our own supporters.”
