Sunk by Cork, now putting faith in Gypsies

El Punter is in the poor house after Georgie-boy's Riverdance antics at Dalymount saw him dismissed and take a chunk out of Cork's chances of winning.

O'Callaghan misses tonight's outing against the Students, and while it's a fairly safe maxim to never trust a student with your money, it must be said that UCD are overpriced. Cork may struggle without their master craftsmen carving the openings for Fenn and O'Flynn to capitalize on. They may indeed find a different route to goal but at 2/5 all the value is in opposing Cork.

Cork 2/5
Draw 5/2
UCD 15/2


Dublin City host Longford Town at Dalymount tonight in a new bid to set a lowest attendance record in the Eircom League. Alas the staunch solitary soul of El Punter will be on hand at the home of Irish football while others drool over Argentina and Germany in the World Cup. I may in fact be in the bar watching Riquelme et al, but I shall have the moral high ground as I will omit this detail when I tell all and sundry how I went to an eircom League game while a World Cup quarter final was being played.

It's unlikely to be a high scoring affair, particularly if the Viking's main source of goals David Freeman misses out, but it will be interesting to see if Alan Matthews has managed to force feed some consistency in to his charges as they bid for their first back to back league wins since Rummenigge and Briegel led the Deustch front line.

5/4 Dublin City
2/1 Draw
2/1 Longford Town




Pats and Sligo will be an intriguing clash. Sligo have sprung from the June break with wins over Derry and Bohs while Pats took the tonking of the season at Tolka and scratched out a draw with UCD. Pats worked very hard in the opening third of the season to take fifth spot and have plenty of reinforcements coming back to fitness to fend off the Westerners challenge for it. A big game, so I'm going for fence splinters up the jacksie and picking the draw.

10/11 Pats
9/4 Draw
5/2 Sligo




If there's any hope of a Bohs revival, it's got to involve a win tonight over Waterford. The draw with Cork will provide some inspiration and belief for the formless Gypsies. A three goal win will be just the tonic for Farrelly to loosen the noose and rally his troops for a challenge on a top half spot while Waterford must wait a little longer for their first league win. The money is down on Bohs!

Yes I'm well aware backing odds-on on away teams is the uberbahn to the poorhouse - but hey I live on the edge.

11/4 Waterford
9/4 Draw
5/6 Bohs



Drogheda badly need a win to get their ship back on the road (I once heard a Wimbledon player - Robbie Earle I think - use this beautiful mix of metaphor and so decided to incorporate it here for your amusement). Doolo's boys got out of jail against Dublin City to salvage at least one point from two games. For all the talk about the Drogs scoring problems, they managed to put four past Waterford. The Bray defence is similarly porous to the Munster side's and the Boynesider's are taken to find their groove tonight with an assured display.

3/1 Bray
9/4 Draw
8/11 Drogheda