Dundalk FC boss says league “was never going to be straightforward”

Dundalk FC aim to bounce back with a win this Friday night at the Carlisle Grounds against Bray Wanderers in the SSE Airtricity League First Division (kick-off: 7.45pm).

The Lilywhites came close to securing their fourth consecutive victory in this season’s League of Ireland after taking a 2-0 lead over Treaty United in their last outing.

Ciaran Kilduff’s side saw their winning streak shattered, however, as they conceded twice to the Limerick outfit in a dramatic final four minutes of regulation time at Oriel Park.

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Yet, with 10 points from a possible 12, they remain at the top of the First Division table.

Bray, however, armed with a game in hand, could narrow the gap to just a single point should they claim what would be their first home victory over The Lilywhites since 2016.

The Seagulls come into Friday’s fixture—the first to be played on the newly installed artificial surface at the Carlisle Grounds—off the back of a 1-0 win over Kerry in Tralee.

Cobh Ramblers, buoyed by a commanding 5-0 home victory over bottom-placed Longford Town, along with Treaty, also remain within striking distance of the summit.

“This was never going to be straightforward,” Dundalk manager Kilduff said after his side’s 2-2 draw with Treaty. “I think if we had gotten a third, it might have been an unrealistic reflection of how I felt we were overall. We were the dominant team, but there are more levels to us, and we can be better at times. I had hoped we could finish strong, but we probably didn’t—that’s the disappointing thing.

“The lads have given everything. It’s 10 points out of 12; they’re doing okay. It’s not a crisis or anything like that, but it hurts. There’s definitely no point in me lying and saying that there aren’t a lot of hurt lads and that there aren’t a lot of very disappointed lads.

“They’re hurting, but there are lessons in it. We got the second goal, and I still never felt comfortable all night in that second half, to be honest. We’re learning with young lads on the job a little bit, and we learned a big lesson there.

“The game’s never over. We get ourselves into a 2-0 position, then find ourselves hanging on for a point with five minutes to go or something like that. There’s huge learning in it, but we’ll take it and move on.”

Dundalk had raced into a 2-0 lead against Treaty, courtesy of goals from Dean Ebbe and Aodh Dervin, but their advantage was reduced four minutes from time when a mistake by stand-in goalkeeper Peter Cherrie gifted a goal to defender Eoin Martin.

The leveller typified the direct nature of the contest, with a set-piece from Martin inside his own half being helped on by Yousef Mahdy and then touched home by Lee Devitt.

“This is the league we’re in,” Kilduff reaffirmed. “Sometimes you’d be talking about playing a box, a diamond, or a triangle. It’s not that league. It’s long throw-ins and free-kicks. We’re benefiting from them as well. It seems to be the nature of the league.

“These young lads are just being thrown in now, and we have complete faith that they have the talent to do it and that they’re the answer. It’s just the reality of the club right now; it’s the reality of where we are, but we’re still very proud of where we are.

“I mean, those lads have done great up to this point, every one of them. It’s easy to make an emotional decision and say they’re too young and not the answer right now. They were last week (versus Kerry), and hopefully, they’ll be again next week.”

The game between Bray and Dundalk marks the first meeting of the clubs in a League of Ireland fixture since 2018 and their first clash in the First Division since 2004.

For Kilduff, the Carlisle Grounds holds cherished memories—as a player, he scored the decisive goal in a 1-0 victory at the Wicklow venue on his Dundalk debut back in 2015.

“I have some good memories back there,” he reminisced. “It’s a different job now. It’s like all of my memories here at Dundalk—you remember all the good ones. I had some bad nights too. We lost the (2016) FAI Cup final in the last minute, and I remember how much that hurt, but we’re a long way from there.

“The reality is we take these things and move on, so hopefully, these lads can make their own memories now, and there will be more good Carlisle memories for them next weekend.”