"We are," says Cork City skipper Alan Bennett with considerable conviction, "a team that can beat anyone on our day."

The problem for Cork just now is that they are yet to have one of their days against another top-four side this season and with just four points from a possible 18 against Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick’s, this evening’s cup encounter with Liam Buckley’s side has taken on a particular importance.

When asked about manager John Caulfield’s effective concession that the league was gone after Monday’s defeat in Tallaght, Bennett says:

“I don’t see anything as being gone until it’s absolutely gone. I want to keep going, I want to keep winning as many games as we can then see where we are at the end of the season. I fully realise that it’s Dundalk’s to lose; absolutely, but we’ll keep going as a group and this is definitely a game now where we have to step up and perform.

“We realise the magnitude of it and the importance of a performance from us.”

It’s important for all sorts of reasons. The cup is now City’s only hope of winning a trophy this year and, with things so tight all of a sudden between second and fourth in the league, there are no guarantees yet of European football.

Restore confidence

Most immediately, though, the City players need to restore confidence in their abilities with everyone’s faith having been shaken by the second half of the Rovers game this week. Pat Fenlon admitted afterwards he had been surprised by how comfortable his side had been. Caulfield’s demeanour spoke for itself. Two long unbeaten runs, home and away, had been ended within four days. Now, Bennett says, the players are anxious to get back out in front of their home support and start to put things right.

“If I could my finger on what went wrong in the two games I’d be up there with Mourinho but I can’t,” says the 33 year-old central defender. “Limerick had a good plan against us and they worked it really well. That was a tough defeat to take but then we just limped into the Rovers game confidence-wise.

“I think it might have been very different if we’d have gone there off a good week of training where you could have gone back and sorted out a couple of things.

“As it is we got caught by two punches in quick succession and we’ve gone from conceding 11 in 22 to six in two. That’s not us; it’s a not a reflection of our season as a whole but it’s the reality right now and the only positive is that we have the perfect opportunity now to put it all behind us, to get a good result against St Pats and then to push on from that.

Breathing space

“But we’ve had a good week as a group now; we had a good talk and the training was good. We needed that bit of breathing space after the weekend and now we’re really focussed on putting in a solid performance.”

City looked nothing like title challengers on Monday and that, in an odd sort of way, Bennett seems to suggest, might be something to take heart from, that it was just something that can be consigned to history as a bit of a blip.

“Football can be hour to hour to hour, day to day, train-recover, train-recover; you get so caught up in focussing on the micro details that sometimes you need to take a step back, take a look at it overall and remind yourselves that you don’t become a bad team over night.”

There is real pressure now to remember how to be the team that has impressed so much at times this season and with the stakes just as high for St Patrick’s, it’s nicely teed up for a big night at Turner’s Cross.