Dundalk’s depth tested as injuries and suspensions bite

Dundalk FC will be forced to line out without the suspended Mayowa Animasahun in Friday night’s SSE Airtricity League First Division clash with UCD at Oriel Park (kick-off, 7:45pm), while the injured Daryl Horgan appears unlikely to feature again this season.

What should have been a landmark occasion for 22-year-old defender Animasahun at Bishopsgate last Friday instead turned bittersweet.

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On a night when the Avenue Road native proudly captained his hometown club for the very first time, and also crowned the milestone with a first-ever goal in a Dundalk shirt, his joy was tempered by the receipt of a 10th yellow card of the campaign.

That booking, incurred during The Lilywhites’ shock 3-2 defeat to Longford Town, now triggers a one-match suspension and rules him out of the UCD clash.

“It compounded our misery, I copped it at the time,” manager Ciaran Kilduff told The Democrat afterwards. “It was one of those things. Not only is the game getting away, but you could see there tonight we’re missing Conor O’Keeffe, Aodh Dervin, Daryl Horgan, and obviously long-term Leo Gaxha.

“Conor O’Keeffe had a mild head issue; it’s kind of a reoccurrence. He should be available this week. We’re having to compound it, and now you have to go without Mayowa, so we have to get creative. The season will be judged not just on tonight, but tonight was a very dark night.”

On regular club captain Horgan—sidelined with the calf injury sustained in the 0-0 draw away to Wexford and absent from the two fixtures since—Kilduff could offer little encouragement regarding the 33-year-old winger’s prospects of returning before season’s end.

“Daryl, we’ll see at the end of next week,” he said. “It doesn’t look like he’s coming back anytime soon. Aodh Dervin comes back from suspension, which will be a big thing for us. It gives us more options, especially now, missing a centre-half in Mayowa.

“But we’re firefighting, and we’re in the thick of it right now. Obviously, losing Sean McHale a while ago—our centre-half—he’s gone for the rest of the season, and we’ve been trying to plug a few holes there. In fairness, last week was great against Bray, and it was a great performance. Tonight, the complete opposite.”

Dundalk’s depleted squad against Longford on Saturday—with Kilduff able to name only seven of the permitted nine substitutes—was further hindered by the U20s’ earlier fixture, a 2-1 victory over Derry City at Oriel.

“It’s probably down to what I said—suspensions and injuries,” Kilduff said of his reduced bench. “It’s where we are; we’re at that time of the season where lads are just not available, so we didn’t have the opportunity.

“TJ Molloy was injured as well during the week, so he would’ve been another body. He’s getting a scan this weekend, but we literally had what we had tonight.”