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Match Preview: Cobh Ramblers v Bray Wanderers

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It’s 6th against 7th on Saturday night as Gary Cronin brings his Bray Wanderers side to St Colman’s Park for our second home tie of the season.

Ramblers host the Wicklow men on the back of last week’s first win of the campaign, with strikers Ciaran Griffin and Killian Cooper scoring in a 2-1 win. Bray come into the game yet to win this season, and on the back of a 2-1 loss against Athlone. However, draws against Treaty, Shelbourne and UCD show that Wanderers have been highly competitive so far this year.

The sides met twice last season. A 0-0 draw in the Carlisle Grounds commenced proceedings following the Covid-19 break, while Bray were 2-1 winners in St Colman’s Park in September. The Rams’ last win over the Seagulls came in May 2019, when Ian Turner’s crucial winner grabbed a 1-0 win.

On the Ramblers injury front, goalkeeper Corey Chambers and midfielder Darren Murphy will be assessed closer to kick-off after missing last weekend. The game is likely to come too soon for Stephen O’Leary, Martin Coughlan and Pierce Phillips who are all carrying knocks. Caelin Rooney faces the final game of his suspension while Regix Madika is a long term absentee through injury.

Brandon Kavanagh of Bray has two goals two his name this year, alongside Cobh’s Ciaran Griffin in the scoring charts. Dylan Barnett and ROI U21 goalkeeper Brian Maher are others to keep an eye on in this Bray side.

Pre-match

Speaking to the assembled media before the game, Cobh assistant manager Dec Coleman is hoping to build on last week’s first win of the season,

“Getting the win last week was important, getting the monkey off our back. Not that we were worried, but people will talk and it’s nice to get properly off the mark with the three points.

Looking at Bray, it’s about time that we make Colman’s Park a bit more of a fortress again. That’s always our aim, regardless of who we are playing. We want any team that’s coming down to play us in Cobh to know that they’re in for a tough game.”

Having started the past two games, defender Cian Murphy also spoke ahead of the game and is looking forward to Saturday night,

We’ve approached every game the same so far. The first two results went against but we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves. We kept doing the same things and now the results are turning. It’s a tight league and if we keep collecting points every week they’ll all matter in the end.

There’s a lot of football to be played still, and we’ll take each game week by week. We’re a good team, we’ll create chances, and we just have to be a bit more clinical. We could have been out of sight last week, and in the end we made it a nervy last five minutes for ourselves.”

Kick-off on Saturday night is at 19:00, with the game being streamed live here on LOI TV.

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