Dundalk manager dismisses O’Kane speculation

Ciaran Kilduff has poured cold water on speculation linking Ryan O’Kane with a potential loan return to Dundalk FC during the upcoming summer transfer window in July.

O’Kane, who amassed over 100 competitive appearances for Dundalk between 2021 and 2024, departed his hometown club last November to join SSE Airtricity League Premier Division champions Shelbourne, following The Lilywhites’ relegation to the First Division.

Despite the promise of a fresh start, the 21-year-old winger has struggled for regular playing time at Tolka Park, failing to make a single start and appearing only as a substitute in four of Shels’ 15 league fixtures to date.

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His limited involvement has sparked talk of a temporary return to Dundalk, but manager Kilduff was quick to dismiss the rumours.

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he said. “I don’t do rumours, but I don’t know anything about it anyway – I can confirm that one.”

While a move for O’Kane appears off the table, Dundalk’s 2-2 draw with 10-man Bray Wanderers on Friday night — their fourth stalemate in five outings — prompted Kilduff to acknowledge the possible need to strengthen his squad when the transfer window opens.

“Throughout the whole game, we had six or seven teenagers on the pitch from start to finish,” he explained. “Some of them haven’t even done their Leaving Cert, so we’re probably a little bit tight for depth, but I wouldn’t swap any of them.

“The lads have done the club and themselves proud to this point. Of course, we want to win the game and stuff like that, but we can’t get too emotional either.

“I know football is an emotional game, and you want to win now and at all moments, but these are young kids.

“I’d say I have more goals in my career than some of them have minutes on the pitch, so there has to be an understanding of that too.

“The reality of it is that’s what we are right now, but I wouldn’t swap them for anything at the minute. We have to just get back to work, get back to winning games, or finding ways, maybe, to win a little bit uglier — but it will come. I still wouldn’t want to be anyone other than us right now in this division.”

At Oriel Park against Bray, Dundalk took a first-half lead through Sean McHale; however, Kilduff believes The Lilywhites were unfairly denied a penalty earlier, when Sean Keogh appeared to be fouled inside the box by Jamie Duggan in the 13th minute.

“Without a doubt,” claimed the Dundalk boss when asked if he believed his side should have been awarded a spot-kick.

“I was very frustrated tonight with a lot of the officiating. I just felt it lost control at times as well — even the red card — everything was boiling over then, it was constant.

“Obviously, I’m going to have to say that I thought, yes, it was a penalty; it looked it from here. But when you don’t get it, and then you don’t get the next one, and then they’re getting soft ones, and then we’re even getting soft ones — there was no consistency to it tonight.

“Of course, there was frustration in it, but we still should have won the game. I never come out and blame officials. Yes, I think one or two decisions went against us, but we’re not going to dwell too much on it.”

Despite Dundalk boasting the best defensive record across both League of Ireland divisions with only eight goals conceded in 14 matches, Kilduff was left disappointed after his side shipped two from set-pieces against Bray.

“It’s criminal,” he said. “We’re finding it so hard down the other end to create when teams are frustrating. If we were to stand back, we conceded three in total against Bray — a penalty in the last minute (in March) and two set-pieces tonight. We conceded off a throw-in against Longford.

“We’re just getting to a point now where teams are setting up to play like that at times against us. No one has cut us open with a brilliant move where we’ve gone, ‘Wow, there’s nothing you can do about that,’ but it is what it is.

“There’s a little bit of frustration, but when you zoom out, we’re proud of our lot so far.”