Call-up chaos returns to haunt Dundalk’s promotion push

Dundalk FC may find themselves without as many as four first-team players for Friday night’s penultimate SSE Airtricity League First Division encounter with Finn Harps at Oriel Park (kick-off, 7:45pm), a contest of considerable weight in the promotion race.

Eoin Kenny, in a rich vein of form, has once again been called into the Northern Ireland U21 squad for their European Championship qualifiers against Malta on Thursday and Germany next Tuesday, while Sean Spaight and TJ Molloy have received Republic of Ireland underage call-ups, with Luke Mulligan also standing by.

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Such absences are certain to leave Dundalk’s squad stretched on the eve of their final home outing of the campaign, where victory would secure the First Division crown, yet any faltering could prolong the title battle to the last day away at second-placed Cobh Ramblers.

“We have to monitor that situation,” remarked manager Ciaran Kilduff after The Lilywhites were held to a 1-1 draw by Athlone Town.

“You can see what we have there tonight; there’s a lot of lads carrying niggles who were on the bench that weren’t even fit to come on, so we’re going to be tested on that front.”

The last time Dundalk suffered such depletion during the international break, they were forced to settle for a scoreless draw away to Wexford, and a similar outcome this weekend could prove damaging to their promotion prospects.

Conversely, victory on Friday night would see Dundalk lift the First Division trophy for the third time in their history, though Kilduff has voiced frustration that several key players may be absent from the celebrations due to international duty, having previously called for postponements in the face of such extensive call-ups.

“It’s not fair,” he said. “I’ve said it since it started happening. I knew this was coming, and I spoke with the lads; they’re absolutely up the walls, it’s a distraction. They’re afraid they’re going to miss one of the greatest moments of their lives.

“We hoped it’d be tonight and then we wouldn’t have to worry as much, but they still wanted to be there if there ever was to be a night where we were going to collect some medal or the trophy or just a final night.

“Even if it doesn’t go our way next week, we won’t give up. We’ll go down to Cobh the following week, and these lads want to be around the group getting ready for the biggest games of the season, and they’ve been taken away.

“I’ve been really campaigning this from day dot; it doesn’t make sense. No one has come back to me with any categorical positive to the rule—there actually is none—so it would be a waste of my time going on about it.”

He added: “It was never a bemoan just for me. There’s an integrity issue for the league here. Teams are playing other teams at certain times where they might have their full strength.

“We went down to Wexford missing lads, but Wexford were also missing lads, and then Cobh are playing them a few weeks later, and Wexford have a better team, and we’re weaker some weeks because we’re without lads.

“As I said, the league, everyone’s aware of it. It’s just one of those rules that doesn’t make sense, and it feels worse now because we’ll be going into a crunch game again doing everything we can to hold them all together.”

Captain Daryl Horgan, who feared his season was over following a calf injury sustained in the aforementioned draw at Wexford, has impressively appeared off the bench in each of Dundalk’s last two fixtures; however, with Shane Tracey also listed as a doubt, Horgan is highly unlikely to feature in the starting XI against Finn Harps.

“The plan wasn’t for Daryl to come on tonight,” Kilduff confirmed. “He had a setback during the game against UCD because we were very, very aggressive with getting him back; he broke down.

“He was on one foot out there, but we were getting to that desperate time late in the game where you need your captain on the pitch to maybe steady things and get us going, and we nearly got it at the end, but no, Daryl’s not a hundred percent.”