Mick McDermott on Cobh Ramblers season and managing pressure of title charge at St Colman’s Park

With his Cobh Ramblers team sitting in second place in the First Division and a trophy in the cabinet, it’s safe to say that Mick McDermott is enjoying life at St Colman’s Park.

The Belfast native was recruited last December and is now seeing the fruits of his labour coming together in east-Cork, with the club mounting their first title challenging in 18-years.

There’s been play-off pushes in the past, but this feels different, and McDermott has one word to describe it.

“Enjoyable – I’ve enjoyed the experience and I’ve enjoyed building the team over the first 17 games,” he said.

“We put the team together over a month. We wanted to be competitive and we are. We wanted to make teams worry and they do, and we’ve got results. 

"We wanted to be as close to the top of the table as we could be and we are. Now our plan is to strengthen in July and that is still is the case.

“As will other teams. We are not the only team that will have that logic. We need to make good decisions and try to push on.” 

One of the ‘decisions’ made early in the campaign was to focus on squad depth and with that came a rounded unit that has helped Cobh sustain a title charge.

There’s a starting XI and there’s options off the bench, in addition to a shared load in of goalscoring.

This is backed up by the stats with Barry Coffey going into the break with 11 tallied, Cian Murphy getting six, and David Bosnjak chipping in with five. 

Waterford’s Shane Griffin has also been getting in on the action by recording five assists, in addition to hitting the back of the net five times in two different competitions.

At the other end of the pitch, Cobh have shown an ability to change things up by going between a 4-2-3-1 formation and moving to a 3-5-2 system that goes into a back five when needed.

McDermott is more than pleased with this, and his point of reference is a recent victory over Treaty United at St Colman’s Park.

That evening saw the coach deal with a number of first team absences, which actually accelerates the next part of his grand plan in Cobh.

“If you look at the bench we had four U20s – with Evan Deasy, Oscar Ahern, Mikey Carroll, and Kian Lane,” McDermott explained.

“We had kids in the squad and it shows how fragile we are. Dale Holland started work shifts and he is not here tonight. 

"James O’Leary left the club tonight because of work commitments.

“So, we have lost seven players in the last six weeks to either work commitments or the load has become too much in of three nights a week and games. 

"Seven players have moved on in the last six weeks. So we went from having a squad with much more depth to [against Treaty] being as lite as we have been.

“It is still nice that we are able to field a strong team and still make changes within the game and still be strong. 

"That wasn’t probably the nature of Cobh in recent years, but that is football. It is the reality of small clubs. 

"They have a small squad and thankfully there’s been some investment into the club and it is has helped us move on and progress.” 

That’s brought the club into the title race for the First Division title, and that has meant a lot of conversations about expectations and where Cobh Ramblers will be at the end of the season.

“The pressure is not on us – we are Cobh Ramblers,” he said.

“Dundalk are clearly the favourites. They are a massive club with massive history and they need to get up. 

"They have to get promoted.

“This isn’t the case of maybe they’ll get promoted, they have to get promoted and they’ve done well against Wexford. 

"Fair play to them. They are a talented team.

“Do Cobh want to get up next year? 

"Absolutely. Do Cobh have to get up this year? No. 

"So, we will build as strong as we will be. I think the bookies have had Dundalk as favourites since the start of the season. 

"They are still favourites. They are in first place and they deserve to be. They’ve been the better team so far.

“So yeah. We don’t feel any pressure. We’re enjoying what we are doing. 

"We’ll try and strengthen in the July window and we’ll push on and where we end up we end up.”