Bray, Waterford, Sligo or Fingal for the cup

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Originally Posted by CarrickFan

Id say when they say Sligo deservedly they mean because we knocked out Cork,Derry and Bohemians(Holders and League Champions)...3 of the top 4 teams in the country...a very tough run by any standards......

Bray on the other hand have knocked out Bluebell,Tralee and Longford....a slight difference.

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Afriad the above seems about right to me. Great to see the four "lesser lights" that are in the semi finals, any of them will be thinking that they can win it. Certainly Sligo have had the hardest run so far and therefore some would feel they "deserve it" more but football has a funny way of buggering up one's predictions (as shown on Tuesday night !).
I Like Sligo as a club (and think PC has done a great job giving the resources) so would probobly hope they win it.:)

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Originally Posted by marinobohs

I Like Sligo as a club (and think PC has done a great job giving the resources) so would probobly hope they win it.:)

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With our resources we should be mid table not fighting a relegation battle.

that sounds like people are disappointed with the job he has done with you?? I think he is one of the better managers in the league.

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Originally Posted by SkStu

that sounds like people are disappointed with the job he has done with you?? I think he is one of the better managers in the league.

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Last season he did a great job. This season, not so much. It's the results in the cups that are making it look a lot better this season than it actually is. We're not professional enough off the pitch imo(lack of training, too much nightlife etc.). We should have beaten Vllaznia easily, we should be beating the other teams around us in the league too. I don't know why it's not happening, but it's certainly not good enough where we are at the moment. Whether we stay up or go down, Cook(and a fair few of the players) will be gone at the end of the season imo.

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Originally Posted by SkStu

that sounds like people are disappointed with the job he has done with you?? I think he is one of the better managers in the league.

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i quite like him and think he has done a good job..we try to play good attractive football..have met him a couple of times and found him approachable and there is no bullsh*t about him..we have been crippled with injuries and suspensions this season but have done well since we got the new signings in July/August...the Derry home game apart..will wait to see how the rest of the seasons pans out.

There were reasons for not being as good this year, our squad was decimated with absentees all summer, but then at times things have happened that are there is no excuse for.

Some of the defeats were poor, but now with our full team you can see what we can do. The problem is we are stuck in this relegation battle and it is tough to get out of it now.

Vllaznia will haunt us forever, maybe luck went against us, but that can't be used as an excuse.

Cook's tenure will be defined in the next few weeks. Win the cup and keep us up, he'll be one of the greatest managers in our history.

Lose, with the possibility of then going down....he'll have worse prospects than Jeff Kenna

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Originally Posted by CarrickFan

have met him a couple of times and found him approachable and there is no bullsh*t about him..

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That is one of the big reasons why Cook is so well liked imo. He tells it how it is and he will always chat to the fans...he is a likeable down to earth manager. I don't want him to go btw, just think he will be gone at end of season.

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Vllaznia will haunt us forever

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you think Vllaznia will haunt you? try carmarthen town i still have nightmares

I like Cook, but as much as I hate too say it, I think he'll be gone by next season aswell :( people will say "he done crap this year" (which in some respects isn't true) but its hard to think of a suitable replacement. Inside Man will most likely be having a wet dream when it does happen and he is gone.

I like Cook as a person, dead on and always has time for the fans.
But IMO I think he has to go at the end of the season, this season bar the Cup has been an unmitigated disaster and with the resources at his disposal the team should not be in a relegation battle.

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Originally Posted by sligoman

I don't want him to go btw, just think he will be gone at end of season.

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I agree,
And if he goes, you can add to the list
Peers
Creataro
Blinkhorn
Boco
infact the whole team will be gone.
We will have to start from scratch.

Look at the players we lost in defence from last season
Almeida
Butler
Coleman
Add in the luck we've had with injuries
Do people not think Cook would have signed a higher calibre of player at the start of the season had he the resources.
The club took a chance by the lack of signings/quality on the basis that we were lucky with injuries last season and got away with it .
but there was always going to be a time in the season when we were going to be strtched i.e. the start of the season.
By the time we got to the july transfer window the damage was done, lost too many games in the league and out of europe.
Would we be out of Europe if we had Peers, Blinkhorn, Doyle, Kendrick.
Look at the situation with Holmes.
We land in Dublin Airport at 11.30pm on Friday night fom Croatia, he drives to Derry straight fom the airport to be up for work at 6.00 am saturday morning, does his days work, sunday has to play Cork City in the league.
Replace Holmes with Kendrick.
Kendrick should have been there at the start of the season

People talk about resouces, its far far less than the teams above us.
And its a hell of a lot harder to attract players to an outpost in NW Ireland
If Cook goes who would we replace him with? Working within in the same budget

Our budget is about 11,000 a week on players alone, Cook is getting around 1500 a week.
It wont be too difficult to attract some decent calibre since we are actually paying our players and staff.

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Originally Posted by roinuj

90% of them neutral or st francis supporters,
bray never had big support.

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The first part of your post is probably the most uninformed post i've ever seen on here. For arguments sake, lets say there was 20,000 at the match (even though there was probably slightly more). By your calculations Bray only had 2,000 supporters at that game.

Bray completely sold their allocation tickets for this and had to get a new batch off the FAI to supply demand for them. Many many more paid in on the day.

Maybe have a look at the footage of the game, especially when Bray scored
(3 times) and then when they lifted the cup, i reckon that will make you rethink your estimation of 2,000 Bray fans in Lansdowne that day.

For you to say there was a combined total (or even anything near to it) of 90% (18,000) St. Francis and neutral is seriously wide of the mark.

The second part of your post is correct.

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Originally Posted by Da Real Rover

Our budget is about 11,000 a week on players alone, Cook is getting around 1500 a week.
It wont be too difficult to attract some decent calibre since we are actually paying our players and staff.

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That's nearly double the budget we have :eek: I'd love to see what we could do with that type of money in our budget

I don't see how you can say they've turned a corner when they are bottom of the table after a mid table finish last year. Yes they might well go on to win the cup, but at what cost might it be? When we won the cup back in 2002 we also got relegated, and it took 7 years to get back into the top flight.

I'm sure Gormley regards the cup as a nice sideshow but I'm sure he'd take avoiding relegation instead of winning the cup any day, as would most (if not all) Bray fans.

You Bray lads seem very touchy on this "how many bray fans were at the final" topic?

lets say there was 20,000 at the match

I think your a little out with your figures, official attendance was 33,000 they originally only sold tickets for West & East stands, but such was the size of the crowd they opened the terraces behind the goals.
There was a sizable neutral support, but i would also say Bray & St Francis brought as many supporters as neutrals.:)