Kilduff laments missed chances as Dundalk fail to stretch lead

Ciaran Kilduff cut a frustrated figure as his Dundalk FC side squandered the chance to open an eight-point cushion at the summit of the SSE Airtricity League First Division, held to a scoreless stalemate on the road against Wexford.

The Lilywhites carved out opportunities at Ferrycarrig Park but found no way past the resilient home defence, their advantage at the top staying at six points after second-placed Cobh Ramblers, having led Kerry 1-0 at Mounthawk Park, were themselves forced to settle for a 1-1 draw.

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“You’re waiting for that moment,” said the Dundalk manager. “It could have been a big night for us. Coming down here was probably one of our trickiest fixtures left, but we wanted to come down here to Wexford and win.

“We weren’t at our full strength tonight; it was a little bit makeshift across the team, but I still thought in the first half we could have been ahead, loads of chances.

“Second half, again, a few times in the box, just needed someone to have the quality or the heart to put one in and score a big goal, but it never came tonight.

“The gap stays at six, so if you said that on the way down, you would assume that maybe both teams won, but it’s hard to see that tonight. It’s frustrating—two points dropped.

“It felt like a couple of times the ball was just there to be put in the net or for someone to have that moment of quality and put it in. There was one there late on as well, where it’s kind of flashed across goal rather than hit low and hard on target, so there’s a lot of frustration in it tonight, and I don’t think there’s any other way to put it.”

International call-ups for Vinnie Leonard, Eoin Kenny, and Sean Spaight left Dundalk severely depleted against Wexford, particularly in defence, making their clean sheet on the night all the more commendable.

“It’s hard tonight, but there’s probably some deep positives in it,” said Kilduff. “The gap is still the gap, and we kept a clean sheet. We got through a game where we had Declan McDaid playing right-back, JR (Wilson) playing left-back—not their actual positions. Conor O’Keeffe and Mayowa (Animasahun) hardly trained all week as well.

“They put their bodies on the line tonight with the injuries that they’re managing, and it probably looked a little bit like that at times. It didn’t look as cohesive, it didn’t look as creative, as fluid as we usually have or we’ve come to expect from ourselves, and it’s disappointing not to win the game.”

One bright note from Friday night was the assured presence of veteran goalkeeper Peter Cherrie, who turns 42 next month, as he guided Dundalk to their 14th clean sheet of the season—his sixth individually—in the absence of Enda Minogue.

When pressed on whether he would select one goalkeeper over the other for the remaining six games, Kilduff replied: “Availability will make a big decision in that.

Obviously, Peter kept a clean sheet tonight; it’s great, and we needed him. He was a safe set of hands there. Enda has had a big role for us already this season. We’ll just assess him as the week goes on.

“You could see we were trying to win the game. I don’t think at any point we thought, listen, we’ll get out of here with a draw. We tried to go and win it, but that meant you leave yourself open a little bit.

“It was like we were huffing and puffing, but we weren’t really getting any penetration or blowing the door down. It was more just nearly stuff rather than making it happen.

“The lads are hurting in there. I don’t expect anything else from them. They failed to score, failed to win; it’s a disappointing night.”