Animasahun leads charge as Dundalk aim to avoid repeat of 2024

Mayowa Animasahun will be hoping history does not repeat itself as Dundalk FC open their SSE Airtricity League Premier Division campaign on Friday night away to Shamrock Rovers (kick-off, 8pm).

Dundalk delivered an encouraging performance in Tallaght Stadium on the opening night of the 2024 season, earning a 1–1 draw, with Animasahun producing an impressive defensive display. However, fortunes soon turned, as The Lilywhites went on to win just five league games out of 36 and suffered relegation.

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Back in the Premier Division after only one season in the First Division, Animasahun and Dundalk would gladly settle for a similar opening-night result in Tallaght, while remaining mindful that early promise is no guarantee of a successful campaign.

“I think no matter what happens next week, we’ve got another 35 games to go,” he said at the club’s season launch. “We’ve got another good few games to go, so we’ll just keep ploughing and ploughing and ploughing, and working and working and working.

“We started well that year in Tallaght, and then we ended up, after the second game, just capitulating really, so no matter what happens, we’ll stay on the task and just focus on what’s ahead.

“It was very tough going down, almost like I owed it to everyone to get us back up. It’s probably the first time in my career I felt like I was doing something that was bigger than myself, as in just trying to help the club in itself and just getting it back to where it belonged.

“It was really big for me, especially just getting the club back up, as I’m a local. I grew up watching them in the Premier Division, so you didn’t want to be the local boy that took us down, so that was a personal pressure I felt — just getting us back up and, hopefully, staying in it.”

Predicted by many to make an immediate return to the First Division, Dundalk will be quietly confident of defying expectations. New signings, including Conor Kearns — a former league-winning goalkeeper with Shelbourne — are expected to bolster their chances of maintaining Premier Division status beyond 2026.

“The lads are coming to the club because of its name and how big the club is,” Animasahun suggested. “They’re not just coming here as a stepping stone, really. They’re coming here because they see Dundalk as a massive club, and it’s an opportunity to play for a big club in Ireland.

“You see the gaffer putting names into the group chat, and we’re thinking, ‘Geez, how’s he managed that?’ It’s because we’re a big club, and people want to play for us. As a local lad, I’m delighted whenever I see people actually delighted to be here, happy to be here, and wanting to be here.”