Tommy Dunne took his Cork City side to County Westmeath on Saturday night and, although the Leesiders came away with a 1-0 win against Athlone Town, it was a result that he accepted should have been more emphatic.

Speaking to extratime.ie after the game, Dunne said “It should have been easier than it was in the end”. Indeed it should and the fact that Athlone goalkeeper, Michael Schlingermann was Man of the Match told its own story. However, he was pleased with his side’s general performance.

“I thought in the first half we were excellent, we created quite a few chances and the game should have been out of sight at half time. I think our general play was good and it’s a tricky place to come but we took our foot off the pedal towards the end and, in fairness, we got a little bit sloppy ourselves. The performance for maybe sixty minutes was good, the other thirty minutes not so good, but we’re happy enough”.

At the start of the season, when he was still trying to put together a squad following the implosion of Cork City, Dunne’s side relied heavily on Graham Cummins and Davin O’Neill for goals but with the addition of Gareth Cambridge and Shane Barrett, along with the creative influence of George O’Callaghan from midfield, Dunne’s side are now armed with a battery of attacking options.

“We spoke about that before the game, that from the attacking side of things we’ve got some good players. And I think some of our attacking play was very good, especially in the first half, and even again in the first ten or twenty minutes of the second half.

All the more frustrating than that more of Cork’s many chances weren’t put away. “Yeah, there were a lot of chances. It’s something that we spoke about because we played Monaghan last weekend and were, again, by far the better team football-wise and in front of goal we’re just letting ourselves down a little bit. So we need to get the finish on a few things but we’ve been working on that this week, we’ll do it again next week. We should have killed the game off, that would have let us maybe move the ball a bit more and relax and play, but overall I think we were the better team. I don’t think that was in question but we just need to be a little bit more professional towards the end.

Standing seven points off a play-off spot and with only eight games remaining Cork’s ability to be in the shake up for promotion must be in doubt. But with Mervue United, a side that are currently shipping goals at an alarming rate, travelling to Turner’s Cross next Friday night there may at least be an opportunity for Dunne’s men to rediscover their form in front of goal.