Young Dundalk FC player Sean Spaight is one to watch for the future

It seems ridiculous to think that the official season kicks off in just over two weeks' time when Dundalk will clash with Athlone Town in the first game in their first game.

Dundalk will have a difficult start to the season with one home game and two away games in a row. After the home league game against Athlone, Dundalk must travel to Finn Harps in Donegal and then Kerry in Mounthawk Park.

Their next game after that will be at home to Treaty United. It will be Dundalk's first-ever visit to the home of Kerry FC when they clash with the Kingdom team at Mounthawk Park.

It's great to see a new club like Kerry in League of Ireland soccer as it spreads the representation of clubs in yet another part of the country.

Kerry did well last season and proved to be a very difficult side to beat on their home patch. Ciaran Kilduff is still in the middle of preparation for the new season.

Having beaten Malahide United in impressive style at Oriel last Friday week, they came crashing back down to earth eight days ago when they were beaten by Usher Celtic from Dublin by two goals to one. This was their second game of the competition.

Eoin Kenny put Dundalk in front in the first half. But two late second-half goals gave the Leinster Senior League side a win. It also gives them a great chance of qualifying for the knockout stages of the competition. 

But Dundalk can take a lot of confidence from the team that lined out for them. The story of the night was the playing of the Republic of Ireland U16 international  Sean Spaight.

Sean had a good game and is certainly one to watch for the future. He played the entire 90 minutes for the first team. He is only 15 and is also from Blackrock. Sean has a strong family connection with the club.

His grandfather is Ted Kierans, a well-known local businessman. Ted was also an ever-present on the Board of Directors in the 1970s and early 1980s during the Jim McLaughlin era and beyond. Ted is very proud of his grandson.

He often stops me in Blackrock and tells me how good a player Sean is. Sean showed against Usher that he is one for the future. Playing for Dundalk at the age of 15 is a dream come true for the young Blackrock lad.

Ciaran Kilduff says the mood in training is as one would expect for a team in pre-season and who are fresh and new to each other and says it is quite upbeat.

''It was so important to come in and train the day after the game against Usher Celtic. When I looked back at the video, there were so many positives within it too.

"I complimented Sean Spaight in front of the group at training. At 15 years of age playing 90 minutes of senior football in a competitive game was brilliant. That is what these 90-minute games are for.

"Seeing the lads playing in the Leinster Senior Cup games is what they are for. Of course, we want to win every time that we step on the pitch.

"But seeing the youngsters get the opportunities and seeing how well they are doing and then seeing what lads have to improve on things, there is plenty that we can take from the Leinster Senior Cup games against Malahide and Usher. There is plenty to build on.''

On the injury front, there was good news. Goalkeeper Enda Minnogue picked up a broken nose against Shelbourne in the first pre-season friendly. He was waiting on a mask before he could get more game time.

He got the mask for Saturday's game against the Irish U19 team. 17-year-old Luke Mulligan will return for the Drogheda game this coming Friday. He picked up a niggle in the Shelbourne game.

It was decided not to use him in the other games. This was just a precaution. Sean McHale should also be fit for the Drogheda game. He picked up an injury in the Malahide game but he got good news.

He is fine and will be ready to play in the Drogheda game next Friday. Norman Garbett who has arrived back to Oriel from New Zealand is still carrying an injury. There will be a delay to his return.

He is still carrying a hamstring injury that he picked up against Shamrock Rovers last season. But the manager feels he is not that far from returning to training. He has been running around the pitch building up his fitness.

As the season comes ever closer and as the transfer window closes I look at the Dundalk squad signed up today with some trepidation. That is because I feel that there are not enough experienced seasoned players in the team.

To get promotion from Division One, you need a strong physical team and one that has a strong amount of experience. I saw Dundalk in Division One for eight years in the opening decade of this century.

They finally got back to the Premier Division in 2008 for season 2009. It was a hard old slog getting there. Dundalk are not going to just walk back into the Premier Division next season. .

A team with too many young players will not get you back to the Premier Division. It's a great pity that Ciaran Kilduff was unable to hold on to at least two or three of last season's squad. That's apart from Daryl Horgan and Aodh Dervin.

Robbie Benson would have been the ideal player to attempt to hold onto. But Robbie knows he is still a Premier Division player. He also knows that he might have at least one league title left in him. This week he signed for Derry City.

Ciaran Kilduff has done a great job assembling a team for this season. There is plenty of talent in the team. But I just do not see the physical strength and experience I would like to see that would be good enough to get Dundalk over the promotion line.

It's vital that Dundalk get off to a good start. The attendances should be fine from the season's kick-off. But were Dundalk to start falling away in the league, on past experience, the home support will start to fall away as well.

This may not happen. But anybody who thinks that Dundalk are a shoo-in for the promotion automatic spot should think again. Dundalk have also lost out on signing two experienced players who would have been a major help to them in the promotion push.

It may be that they decided they were not the players that they wanted. But I was surprised to hear that Dundalk did not pick up at least one of them for next season.

Instead, they signed for teams who will be in direct competition with Dundalk for the automatic promotion or play-off spot.

Next Friday Dundalk play Drogheda in the annual Jim Malone Cup game. Drogheda who are owned by Walsall, really did a magnificent job in signing in the summer window which kept them in the Premier Division.

They also won the FAI Cup for the second time in their history. Drogheda should clinch the annual competition for the third year in a row.

That's simply because on paper they will have the stronger team on paper as they are a Premier Division team. But Drogheda may field a weakened side as they will be contesting the President's Cup final the following week against Shelbourne.

There is no doubt that Dundalk will field their strongest team. It's a great chance for Ciaran Kilduff to test themselves against a team from the Premier Division.

The PFA Ireland visited the players at Dundalk FC in Oriel last week. In a short statement the organisation says that among the many topics discussed, they spoke with the players about the challenges the club has faced recently.

The PFA Ireland says there is a huge amount of work going on to try and prevent what happened at Dundalk towards the end of last season ever happening again.

I was doing some research on Oriel Park at the weekend and how it historically evolved. In 1888 before facilities were even established it was dubbed as a water reserve by the British Surveyor's General Office.

It was once a bountiful water supply facility which was used for road maintenance and development purposes in 1912. Dundalk moved to Oriel Park in 1936.

On Saturday last Dundalk drew 1-1 with the Republic of Ireland U18 team at Oriel Park. The game was supposed to be played the day before. But the huge storm that hit the country prevented that from happening.

Boss Ciaran Kilduff was right when he said that the game was a proper workout. Dean Ebbe's opening goal for Dundalk was quickly cancelled by a goal from the penalty spot by Charles Akimrintoto for the Republic of Ireland.

Dundalk could have been a goal in front at half time creating a couple of really good openings. But the home side finally took a deserved lead on the hour mark when Dean Ebbe shot home well from a superb cross from Daryl Horgan. 

But the Irish under 19's were level within 10 minutes when Shamrock Rovers' player Akimrintoyo shot home from the penalty spot on 70 minutes.

The referee harshly awarded the spot kick as it did not seem to be a handball. Dundalk boss Ciaran Kilduff says the game was good because his players got the minutes that they needed.

He was even confident enough in saying that he felt that some of his players looked very sharp and were now ready for the new league season.

Kilduff says that his team created a lot of chances and were on the front spot from the very start. The Dundalk boss says his team were working on a couple of aspects of their game that they knew were going to be specific for the way he wants his side to go this season.

He accepted that some of Dundalk's play was not perfect. That he says will be addressed when they look at some video clips of the game.

Kilduff says that Dundalk should have been home and hosed before the Irish U19s got their equaliser. He felt the players are getting sharper as the weeks go on. This, he added, is very good news.

It was great to see goalkeeper Enda Minogue getting the chance to play 66 minutes in the game. He missed the two recent Leinster Senior Cup games having sustained a broken nose in training.

Minogue was able to play the game by wearing a new mask on his face to protect his broken nose. The most important aspect of his game was that he was able to totally command his penalty area.

It looks like Ciaran Kilduff has got himself a decent keeper, unlike the four keepers Dundalk had last season. I heard some people criticise the signings made by Jon Daly in the second half of last season.

Well yes, Felix Goddard was not the answer in goals. But the recruitment for the first half of the first half of last season proved to be the catalyst that caused Dundalk's demise in the Premier Division even before Jon Daly walked through the doors of Oriel.

The two Zak's were a great piece of recruitment by Dundalk in the first part of season 2024. Other than that few if any of the rest of them ever shined.

Some of the players who were very disappointing got two-year contracts. One was Jamie Gullan. Jamie came to Oriel with the record as a prolific goals scorer.

To be fair to Jamie, his natural position was normally as a winger. He was used last season as a striker. It just never worked out for him.

I was glad for Jamie that he got sorted this week and got his transfer back to his old club Raith Rovers. Another player still on Dundalk's books from last season is Koen Oostenbrink. Koen is not in Ciaran Kilduff's plans for the coming season.

But while he continues to be on Dundalk's books the club must pay his wages. If I were any of the owners I would be far from happy about the situation. The sooner Koen can get a club, the sooner Dundalk will not have to pay his wages.

Returning to Ciaran Kilduff the manager says that there are much bigger things ahead for Dundalk in the coming weeks as the new season approaches.

The boss believes that new signing Ethan Vaughan who played the full 90 minutes on Saturday has been impressive in training and is happy at the way he is doing in training.

Kilduff says that the player came over and did a lot of pre-season training before committing his future to the club. Kilduff added that it was easy to see how physical he is and that he wants to play.

The manager added that he is fit and hungry to play. Most importantly Ethan is a defender. He can play centre half or full back. Dundalk finished the game on Saturday with two 16-year-olds at centre half. They were Vinnie Leonard and Sean Spaight.

I am sure that his grandad, Ted Kierans is very proud that Sean played so well. Sean lost his grand-aunt Marie Harrisbark only two weeks ago. He and his own family were very close to Marie.

Marie was a good neighbour of mine in Blackrock. For Sean and his family, this is a time for personal grief at the loss of Marie. She was a sister of Ted Kierans.

Ciaran Kilduff says that so far in the preseason he has been splitting up his teams with experienced and younger players. He says that in the weeks to come he will be putting all that together as the season approaches.

Dundalk also finished Saturday's game with 18-year-old Sean Keogh. This meant that Dundalk finished the game with four underage internationals.

The manager was also full of praise for TJ Molloy and striker Muhammad Harris. One of the players is only 15, and Kilduff is trying to set up games with a couple of Irish League teams in the north.

He knows that will be hard as they are in mid-season. Might I suggest they try and ask First Division Newry City and Second Division Warrenpoint for friendlies if they can not secure some game time with teams in the Irish League Premier Division.

Incidentally, I was glad to see the Dundalk boss giving Peter Cherrie some game time in the last 25 minutes of Saturday's game.

Had the different managers who were in charge of Dundalk last season done this then maybe Dundalk might not have been relegated. Ciaran Kilduff is willing to look at all his options. This is a sign of a very good manager.

On the Academy front, it's great to see Callum Woods training with Ipswich Town. He was called up to play with their U21s. He provided an assist in a 5-0 win for the Ipswich U16s on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Dundalk confirmed on Saturday that they have signed a new defender. He is Ethen Vaughan. He has been signed from a UK  non-league side called Brighouse Town.

He is 23 and plays centre half or full back. He has been training with Dundalk for the entire month of January. He previously played at Norwich and Burnley.

Ethaen says he sees a move to Dundalk as a step up in his career. The Halifax native says that he sees it as a chance that will allow him to progress in his footballing career.

Dundalk's average attendance at Oriel Park was 2,419 last season. This includes away supporters visiting Oriel as well as of course the home supporters. Dundalk had the second-worst average attendance in the Premier Division last season.

Drogheda had the worst average attendance in the Premier division with figures of 2,024. Shamrock Rovers had the best average attendance of 6,071. Next was Pats with 4,401. In third place was Bohemians with 4,241.

Galway were in fifth place with an attendance of 3,014 while Derry City were in sixth place with 2,875. Sligo Rovers were in seventh place with 2,858.

Waterford were in eighth place with an average attendance of 2,783. As mentioned, Dundalk came 9th with average attendance of 2,410 while neighbours Drogheda finished last with 2,024.

In the First Division, Cork City had the top attendance with a crowd on average of 2,881. Treaty United were second with attendance averaging at 1060. Finn Harps had the third-best average attendance of 1,023.

Cobh Ramblers attendance averaged at 734. Athlone Town had the fifth-highest attendance at 642. Kerry were sixth with 616, Wexford had 536, Longford Town had an average attendance of 450 while UCD had the lowest average attendance in the First Division of 336 people.

Thus one can see that Dundalk will be playing in front of much lower away attendances this season in the First Division.

Attendances at Oriel Park will be lower this season simply because of the fact that the clubs in the First Division have little or no away support.

Last season attendances at Oriel were bolstered by a good away support fan base from the Premier Division clubs in the Division. Dundalk will be depending on a good home support. They will get that.

But the fear will always linger that were Dundalk not to be in contention for promotion that attendances could drop to as low as 600.

That is what the attendances were like in Oriel in the dour old days when Dundalk could not get out of the First Division.

Linfield are reported to have made a move last week for Derry City striker Pat Hoban. The former record goal scorer of all time with Dundalk was reported by the national media that he could be leaving Derry.

However, they have issued statements in the past week that Hoban was going nowhere. The national media had linked Pat to Shamrock Rovers.

Personally, I can not see Hoban moving from Derry at all. But with all the uncertainty around the issue, it does seem that Linfield are very keen on bringing one of the best strikers in the country to Windsor Park. If it were to happen he would be linking up with another former Dundalk hero, Chris Shields.

All fans should get to Oriel Park next Friday for the Jim Malone Cup game against Drogheda. This is always a very competitive game and both sides always see it more than a pre-season friendly. Kick-off is at 7.45.

Have a good week. Please be careful out there. And remember to look after each other.