League Preview: Cork City -v- St. Patrick’s Athletic

• Philip Morrissey
• Thu, Apr 10 2025

The Leesiders will need to regroup after a damaging loss away to Derry City when they take on second placed St. Pats at Turners Cross on Friday (kick off 19:45).

After two consecutive home draws, City suffered their second loss of the season at the Ryan McBride Brandywell. This was after taking the lead early on via Kitt Nelson. 

The home side recovered with second half goals from Ronan Boyce and Michael Duffy. A further blow came with a serious injury for Ruairi Keating in the closing stages.      

This was confirmed during the week to be a ruptured achilles tendon that is set to rule him out for the rest of the season. 

Clancy commented on the injury during the week: “It’s a really bad one for us. He was looking sharp; he was doing extra work. “You’re not going to get back with a ruptured Achillies in anything less than six to nine months. I think that’s very, very hopeful. It’s a serious injury so it’s important we get the right treatments for Keats and start that slow recovery back”.

Young Striker David Dunne is likely to see some game time despite rumoured interest from Monaco while Charlie Lyons returns after a ban.  

ST. PATRICK’S ATHLETIC

Visitors St Pat’s will be looking to go top for the first time this season after recovering from a slow start. 

The Saints saw their two-match winning run come to an end with a scoreless draw with reigning champions Shelbourne last week.  

Mason Melia and Chris Forrester had chances for the home side, but they were indebted to Joseph Anang who denied a great chance for Sean Hoare. 

Stephen Kenny was looking forward to being back at Turner Cross: “They are unbeaten at home and I’m sure we’ll be expecting a real tough game down here. We have had a lot of issues in pre-season, but we need to push on now. We are really looking forward to the game. Cork is a passionate place with passionate supporters, so we’ll have to earn it.” 

Kian Leavy might feature from the start after an impressive showing off the bench last weekend. 

Referee: Marc Lynch

MATCH STATS

It is perhaps curious that the sides placed second top and second bottom have the same number of losses this season (two). The difference has been the Dublin side being able to convert more of their draws into wins. Kitt Nelson will be looking to join Keating on three goals after his effort last week.  

BETTING

Cork City 4/1; Draw 5/2; St Patrick’s Athletic 13/20

PREDICTION

Cork City 1-2 St. Patrick’s Athletic 

Cork City

Injured: Ruairi Keating, Harry Nevin, Greg Bolger, Sean Maguire, Malik Dijksteel. 

Doubtful: Evan McLaughlin. 

Suspended: None

St Patrick’s Athletic 

Injured: N/A

Doubtful: N/A. 

Suspended: None

<blockquote class="bluesky-embed" data-bluesky-uri="at://did:plc:upoyh56jezpghlknjs76ip4n/app.bsky.feed.post/3lmif6w6sb52s" data-bluesky-cid="bafyreiblxefcvxx6cffnvuhd5dmgvbyhzqvj3cnzz3ou33omfyqwbeww3e" data-bluesky-embed-color-mode="system"><p lang=""><br><br><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:upoyh56jezpghlknjs76ip4n/post/3lmif6w6sb52s?ref_src=embed">[image or embed]</a></p>&mdash; extratime.com (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:upoyh56jezpghlknjs76ip4n?ref_src=embed">@extratime.com</a>) <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:upoyh56jezpghlknjs76ip4n/post/3lmif6w6sb52s?ref_src=embed">10 April 2025 at 21:54</a></blockquote><script async src="https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>