Through Irish Eyes: Unstoppable Cork can shut out Galway
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Cork City’s first League of Ireland Premier League title in 12 years now looks inevitable. The Rebels are 15 points clear having had an enormously impressive start to the season and are now two wins away from equalling a record for the most consecutive wins from the beginning of the season.
That’s a record currently held by the Bohemians team of the 1923-24 season, who won their opening 15 games, as pointed out by the excellent @HISTORYLOI account.
This week they face Galway United, who have proved very difficult to beat in the last two months.
They hosted Derry City midweek in what was the league’s first scoreless draw this season and before that avoided defeat to Drogheda United with a last gasp equaliser, leaving their manager Shane Keegan swallowing his rage rather than celebrating a point.
Unfortunately, the Tribesman’s attacking play is heavily reliant on Ronan Murray and I can see Cork managing that threat well.
I think Cork will certainly be made work for the result here though and the Draw/Cork on the Half-Time- Full-Time market at 14/5 is a good bet.
My selection though will be Cork to win to Nil at 13/10.
Finn Harps will be a little fragile after a heavy beating to Cork last time, which can go down as one of the more unlucky 5-0 hammerings.
Harps were already dealing with injuries, only managing four players on the bench. While trailing 1-0 they were denied a likely penalty and eventually had an unlikely spot-kick go against them.
Enter Bray Wanderers, whose season has been rife with high scoring games and questionable penalties. Wanderers also put five goals past Harps earlier in the season.
Tonight’s visitors will have been disappointed not to have extended their lead over Dundalk, dropping two points at home to St.Pat’s last week and they are unlikely to let that happen again.
Backing Bray for a big win here on the handicap pays very nicely. Bray (-2) @ 6/1 is very tempting. The selection though is a more conservative Bray (-1) which is already overpriced at 11/5.
I’m not sure how many times people can allege that this Shamrock Rovers season is “finally getting started”.
Off the back of their biggest win of the season against Dundalk the question remains: are Rovers a work in progress, just been unlucky so far or are merely an average and inconsistent team?
At this point in time it seems to me that they’re a reasonably talented side with very little discipline.
They have often controlled games only to collapse and last week picked up their fourth red card of the season. So, a Dublin derby with rivals Bohemians may test this again.
However, Bohemians are in poor form having lost five of their last six league games. In the league and cup meetings between these two we’ve seen the ‘Shamrock Rovers to win & Both Teams to Score’ bet come in twice.
That seems worth another punt here at 16/5.
And here’s this weekend’s LOI Treble in full:
Cork to win to nil @ 13/10
Bray (-1) v Finn Harps @ 11/5
Shamrock Rovers win & BTTS @ 16/5
Treble Pays 29/1
Good luck!
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All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing
