Winger Michael Duffy insists he wants to make up for his missed chances when Derry City travel to Cork City in the Sports Direct FAI Cup tomorrow night.
Duffy missed a few glorious opportunities in the Candystripes’ last two league matches, against Shelbourne and Dundalk, and because of that he would love to be back amongst the goals this week.
“I’m eating myself up after our last two games,” he stated.
“They were two massive games in the league, they were important and I should have had us ahead in both matches.
“Those two games change if I score. Even down at Shels, if we go 1-0 up and I know we got the man sent-off, we could have held on and then Dundalk last Friday night, if I get that goal at the start, it’s a completely different game.
“Look, it’s obviously disappointing, but I just look forward to Friday and hopefully I can put it right, by getting back scoring and getting involved in the goals again.”
Duffy, who has won the FAI Cup four times – twice with Dundalk and twice with his hometown club – concedes City’s 2022 FAI Cup final win over Damien Duff’s side, will live long in the memories for everyone involved.
Over 20,000 Derry supporters made the trip to the Aviva Stadium that day and Duffy knows how important the cup is for the club.
“The cup final is the best day of the year,” he added. “You have all your family there, the whole city is there.
“That memory against Shelbourne was unbelievable for us, for the city, for everybody, so we know what’s at stake and how big Friday night’s tie is for us.”
The 30-year-old is expecting a tough test against Tim Clancy’s men, especially after the recent arrival of striking duo Ruairí Keating and Sean Maguire, but Duffy believes the Rebel Army was already strong before their summer signings.
“It’s going to be a tough game, down in Turner’s Cross,” he explained.
“Cork are obviously doing brilliantly this year in the league and I would say that Turner’s Cross will be packed, so we know it’s going to be tough for us.
“Cork have a really good squad, but those two signings are great for them and they’re obviously strengthening and looking towards next year already.
“To be fair they already had a strong squad before adding Keating and Maguire. We obviously have come up against Keating a few times and then you add Seanie Maguire to the league is massive for them. He’s obviously a brilliant player and we’ll have to do our work on him and the entire Cork side.
“They have wee Evan (McLaughlin), who everyone at Derry knows about. Sean Murray, who I played with at Dundalk, is a brilliant player and they have Greg Bolger, so as I said they’ve a quality squad and they’ll be well up for the game.
“It seems that they have the First Division wrapped up, so they’ll be putting everything into this tie and the FAI Cup will be huge for them.
“Everyone wants to go on a cup run, we know it’s going to be a tough task, but we just have to look after ourselves. I know we had a bad night against Dundalk, but overall we’ve been in good form recently and we just have to look after ourselves and try to do our business.”
The ex-Dundalk man also feels a cup run would benefit Ruaidhrí Higgins’ squad in the run-in and he believes the remaining matches in the league means the Premier Division title race going to go down right to the wire, especially as every club seems to have something to play for.
The Foylesiders sit two points behind leaders Shels, but City missed the chance to move into top spot after what was a bizarre set of results last weekend.
Derry could only secure a point against lowly Dundalk last Friday, then 24 hours later the table-toppers lost at in-form Sligo Rovers and on Sunday champions Shamrock Rovers failed to close the gap, as they drew at home with strugglers Drogheda United. Duffy, though, wasn’t surprised with the results.
“A lot of teams in the Premier Division have strengthened this year and it’s just a tough league this season,” he explained.
“There’s quality teams the whole way through the league. Most years usually you might have a couple of teams who you would virtually guarantee points, but it’s not like that this season, you have to be on it, on the night and if not you’re in bother.
“If you drop off in any way, teams will drop points and that has been the case for ourselves plenty of times and for all the teams to be fair.
“Loads of teams are playing for Europe or lots of teams are playing to stay up, so everyone has something to play for coming into the run-in.
“So it’s going to be a massive nine games for us and hopefully we can just do our business right and try to win as many games as we can.
“First up is Cork, in the cup, so we’re just preparing for that now on Friday and we’ll leave the league until next week.
“At Cork hopefully we can get off to a good start and play our game, especially the way we have been over the last few weeks and do enough to get into the next round.”
