Relief for Kilduff as Dundalk survive UCD scare

Ciaran Kilduff breathed a sigh of relief as his Dundalk FC side emerged from their visit to UCD with a hard-fought 1-0 victory, keeping their promotion ambitions firmly on track at the summit of the SSE Airtricity League First Division.

The Lilywhites secured all three points through a composed first-half penalty from Daryl Horgan but were forced to weather a late storm from The Students.

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UCD came agonisingly close to snatching a draw in the 89th minute, only to be denied by a crucial penalty save from goalkeeper Enda Minogue, whose heroics preserved Dundalk’s slender lead at the death.

“I thought for periods we were really good,” Dundalk manager Kilduff reflected in his post-match interview with The Democrat. “For the later stages, it got nervy, and it felt like a team trying to win the league—a lot of young lads, and us on the sideline as well, just trying to drive this home.

“I’m so proud of Enda, to be honest. He made a mistake last week, and no one’s harder on Enda than Enda is. I came after him before the game today—I wanted to drive him on. It was a coming-of-age moment. He’s such a young goalkeeper, and he’s come up trumps for us there tonight with some big moments.

“There were some strange decisions in the game; it was a very frustrating game. There’s been a lot of them this year. It has to be looked at, because the reality of it is—their manager, me—it’s boiling over. It’s frustration, and it’s all down to decision-making. It was just two penalties. We scored ours, they missed theirs, and you take the points. And, to be honest, that was the objective on the way down.”

While Minogue rightfully claimed the spotlight with his late heroics, Kilduff reserved special praise for defender Mayowa Animasahun, who marked his return to the team—after a three-game absence due to a hamstring injury—with a solid performance at the back and was the one to win the penalty that Horgan ultimately converted.

“Mayowa by right shouldn’t have played,” Kilduff acknowledged. “We needed him, and Mayowa will do anything for this club, and I like to think he’ll do anything for me. He put his body on the line for us all tonight. He’s a leader, he’s a big, physical, athletic boy, and he’s a huge contribution to our clean sheet tonight.

“He won’t steal the headlines in terms of the penalty save or scoring the winner like Daryl, but Mayowa trained for the first time yesterday in nearly a month, so to put himself out there like that is massive.”

Meanwhile, it is understood that defender Sean McHale will remain sidelined with an ankle injury and is not expected to be available for selection until, at the earliest, Dundalk’s away fixture against Treaty United on August 22nd.

“He’s got a scan, we’re just awaiting the result,” Kilduff confirmed. “There is an issue there, and it’s been an ongoing one, but fingers crossed it’s nothing too major and he’ll bounce back.”

After their Bank Holiday fixture against Longford Town at Oriel Park, Dundalk welcome bottom-side Athlone Town this Friday night (kick-off, 7:45pm), though Kilduff remains cautious, recalling the frustrating 0-0 draw between the sides in Lissywollen back in May.

“They’re all banana skins,” he warned. “There’s no easy game, and there’s always this expectation around the place that we have an entitlement to win a game—we don’t. We’ve dropped points to Athlone already this year, which is next Friday.

“I’m coming back to the same clichés—you could just rinse and repeat with me—but we haven’t got an easy game, and every game is tough, so there’s a lot of reasons to be apprehensive about every game we play.

“We’ve had more than one frustrating night this year; a lot of them tend to be in Oriel as well. They can be awkward situations and awkward games to break teams down, but we’ll prepare properly.”