Daire O'Connor: 'We have to start thinking that we can make Europe now'

Andrew Dempsey reports from the UCD Bowl

After three wins from four, Cork City attacking midfield star Daire O’Connor feels that the Leesiders can start to believe that European qualification is a very real possibility after Monday night’s 1-0 win over bottom side UCD.

O’Connor, the 2018 First Division winner, spoke following the game to extratime.ie after City secured all three points against his former employers at the UCD Bowl.

“(That’s) three points twice against UCD in the space of three days so it’s good to rack up the points after what was a disappointing start. It looks like the more points we get the sooner we can get up the table.

“The change of formation will always have a form of an impact but UCD will always be UCD. They’ll look to try and dominate possession and play through the thirds and to be fair anyone watching the game will happily admit that they play very good football.

“We were happy to let them have the ball once they’re not troubling our goal and soon as we win it back, we have to dangerous on the counter and I thought that’s what won us the game in the end, that resilience.”

With improved form seeing the Leesiders move up to sixth in the league table, the former Irish Colleges and Universities star believes that European qualification is now very plausible should the 2017 league and cup winners continue on their recent run of positive results.  

“I suppose we have to start thinking that we can make Europe now. I think results have gone our way in the last few games. A lot of the mid table teams have drawn against each other and we have collected six from nine and hopefully we can get a few more on the board.

“We have four games in Dublin on the bounce. We have Rovers, Bohs in the EA Sports Cup and then we have Pats away on Friday so we may as well live in Dublin over the next few days for the forthcoming fortnight!

“That’s the trips we have to deal with coming from Cork but as I said when there’s fixture congestion and you’re winning games it’s great because you suddenly have nine points in ten days but when you’re losing it’s not so great because you don’t have time to sit down and reflect on it. Hopefully if we can get a run here and there points can start to gather very quickly.”

With the Arklow native making the move from Belfield to Turners Cross during the off-season, the 22-year-old admits that it was also a bit of a culture shock seeing how passionate the Cork City support can be after his four-year stint with the Students.

“From a personal point of view the fans are great in Cork. They attach to you straight away and they’re full of encouragement. Obviously, they want their team to win and when we don’t, they can get on our backs.

“It’s my first real experience of that in professional football with fans after a bad game. It’s not just you who has to criticise yourself, you get criticism across the board and rightly so. It keeps you on your toes.”