Waterford FC make the trip to the UCD bowl this Friday for an FAI Cup quarter final date with UCD. Progressing through the rounds so far, the Blues have dispatched Athlone Town and Kilnamanagh.
The opening game provided a scare for Marc Bircham's team who needed extra time and penalties to see their way past Athlone.
While the Kilnamanagh game was a bit more routine with John Martin, Cameron Evans and Phoenix Patterson all helping the team to a 4-1 home victory.
The teams who remain present a mix of abilities and playing standards, with some of the favorites already knocked out. St Pats, Wexford Youths, Bohemians, Maynooth, UCD, Finn Harps, Dundalk and of course Waterford are still involved.
With the Blues recent outing against Shamrock Rovers still to the forefront, Bircham's team will want to get back to winning ways and book their place in the last four. Goalkeeper Brian Murphy is happy to have a game to fix what went wrong at the Tallaght Stadium last week.
I suppose you'd nearly prefer it to be league game and you can right the wrongs of the the result last week; but look it's another opportunity to win a match, it'll be difficult against UCD but you know we're in a quarter final, a chance to get in the semifinals and being one game away from an FAI Cup Final.
With such a mix of teams still involved and with so many surprise results already confirmed, the competition poses a chance for Waterford to lift silverware for the first time since 1980 when the last lifted the cup, but Murphy reminds us that while the route on paper looks more simple than last year - there is no such thing as a n easy game.
They're all tricky matches, there's very little between many of the teams in the country. I think if you're looking at our game last week, you probably see the difference of league champions and the rest. I think Shamrock Rovers are probably by far the best team we played this year over the couple of games we played them.
You know, we tried to spoil the party last week and we couldn't get away with a result but the rest of the teams are all even.
I wasn't playing in the last round of the cup, but the lads had a tough game up in Athlone. So it just shows that you have to be at your best to win any game football.
Referencing the last cup outing with Kilnamanagh, Murphy notes that the team are still adjusting to a new approach from Bircham, and that the latest players who have been added to the squad are still in the bedding in process to some extent. Last week's game with Rovers saw them challenging a superior side with few chances to make an impact on the play, while their earlier cup outing had them as the stronger, more able team - with that comes some unique challenges.
Yeah, look, that was a different game, I suppose. When you're controlling the game of football, which, probably in the Premier Division, you know, generally it's 60/40 or 50/50 for possession so both teams have a fair share of the ball.
But when you have probably 70 or 75% possession, you have to be able to create all the time and it's something that our team is still getting used to. But look, there's no easy games in football, you have to go out with the right mentality and attitude and hope things click for you in the night
