FAI Cup Final Preview: Can Cork City Shock Shamrock Rovers’ Double Dream? | OneFootball

On paper, Sunday’s FAI Cup Final at the Aviva Stadium may appear as an inevitable coronation of a historic double for Shamrock Rovers, their first in 38 years. However, Ger Nash’s Cork City, whose relegation to the First Division was confirmed with three games to spare, will be desperate to spoil the Hoops’ party and ‘salvage’ a sorry season. With over 30,000 tickets already sold for the Irish domestic game’s biggest annual spectacle, cup fever has evidently spread throughout both fanbases, for whom the significance of a famous victory would be enormous but for very contrasting reasons.

The Road to Lansdowne:

Although seven of the last sixteen finals have been won by the team that finished lower in the league, there has rarely been such a gulf in the standings as this time round when 1st face 10th. Last year’s winners, Drogheda, finished 9th and survived via a play-off the week after defeating 4th placed Derry in the Aviva. However, a triumph for First Division-bound Cork City would more closely emulate the last second-tier team to lift the cup – Sporting Fingal in 2009 when they shocked Sligo Rovers.

Another beacon of hope for the Leesiders will no doubt derive from their much superior form in the cup compared to the league, most clearly illustrated via their 3-0 demolition of St Patrick’s Athletic in the semi-final. This followed a Round of 16 home victory against Munster rivals Waterford and a 3-0 canter in the quarters against Finn Harps – their only win away from Turner’s Cross in any competition this season.

This worrying record on the road is certainly concerning for the Rebel Army ahead of the big day in Dublin, where they took just one point from eight games against the various capital clubs across the league campaign. Both trips to Tallaght resulted in 4-1 defeats to Sunday’s opponents, who the Champions looked several levels clear of, first, Tim Clancy’s and then Ger Nash’s City team on each occasion.

The Cork-based clashes were very different stories, however, both ending in 1-1 draws in which the Leesiders managed to frustrate Bradley’s side much more effectively. The most recent of these in mid-September, which saw Darragh Crowley’s stoppage-time piledriver save a point for City, will likely lay the foundation for Nash’s gameplan on Sunday, as will the Pats semi-final, the Kildare man’s finest hour in the Turner’s Cross dugout to date.

The Hoops’ final hurdle

Having secured a fifth league title in six years, Shamrock Rovers’ ambitions now extend to winning their first double since 1987. Indeed, it would only be their second cup triumph since that final season at their old Milltown home nearly four decades ago. The 32-year drought was ended by Stephen Bradley in 2019, ushering in an era of long-awaited domestic success for the Hoops.

That success has been heavily league-based, though, as the cup has remained a source of frustration since 2020 when they lost the final to Dundalk. Since then, they have only managed a single normal-time victory against fellow premier division sides and just one more on penalties, coming in this year’s quarter-final against Drogheda. That was the only top-flight opponent faced by Rovers en route to the Aviva, with a rather fortuitous draw pairing them with Longford in the Round of 16 before another home tie in the semi-final against Kerry FC, who finished 9th in the First Division.

Perhaps this kind path to the final was the luck Bradley’s men both needed and deserved given their extra European commitments on top of an arduous league season. The Hoops’ boss, however, is under no illusions as to the test City will pose his side. The seriousness with which he is approaching Sunday’s showpiece was evident in his team selection away in Greece on Thursday night. A heavily rotated Rovers side managed to secure a valiant point against the much-fancied AEK Athens, having been “robbed”, according to Bradley, by a dubious 90th minute penalty.

Neither of the Corkmen who have starred for the Champions this season, Matthew Healy and Josh Honohan, featured in the Greek capital. Neither did players like Danny Grant or Daniel Mandriou start the game, with Bradley appearing to prioritise several key players’ fitness for the cup final.

Team News & Prediction:

Both managers should have close to a full squad to choose from, a luxury not often afforded at this late stage of a campaign. Indeed, for Ger Nash, the timing of the final has helpfully coincided with Ruairi Keating’s return to some fitness. The City striker, who had been out injured with a ruptured Achilles since March, made his return to action against Derry City last week and looks set to make an appearance off the bench at the Aviva. Keating’s temperament and personality “would suit the big occasion”, according to his boss, who also stated that it will be “the white heat of the game that decides whether we use him and how long we use him for.”

Tactically, expect to see a lot of defenders on the pitch on Sunday. Any change from Bradley’s standard 3-5-2 would be a major surprise, while the success of the five-man defence deployed by City in the semi-final should give an indication as to how they’ll seek to replicate their best performance of the season to date. Most likely it will be an unchanged team from the one that faced Derry last time out in what was seemingly a dry run for the final’s XI.

Travelling Corkmen and women will have fond memories of their back-to-back cup triumphs in 2016 and 2017 under John Caulfield. Back then, City and Dundalk were the dominant forces in Irish football, whereas now the Rebel Army dream of overcoming the league’s seemingly perennial kings, gazing up rather than down at the unrelenting Shamrock Rovers. Logic would suggest that Hoops supporters can already start planning their celebrations for an inevitable, long-awaited double. But we all know football is never that simple, is it?