O'Donnell laments poor Dundalk performance

Stephen O’Donnell was brought back down to earth last night, when Dundalk were trounced by Derry City by 3-0 at the Brandywell.

Jordan McEneff put Derry ahead on twenty minutes with a powerful shot to the bottom right hand corner of the net, beating Nathan Shepherd.

Derry dominated the game throughout. They got their second goal fifteen minutes into the second half, when Brandon Kavanagh fired home an unstoppable shot from 20 yards.

The goal of the night came six minutes from the end when Derry winger Adam Murphy tore the Dundalk defence asunder.

He easily cut past Wasiri Williams on the right. His pass from the byline was not cleared by a totally out of sorts defence.

Former Dundalk Player Michael Duffy was at the far post to slot the ball into the empty net.

Dundalk’s first shot on target came just before the end when Keith Ward’s weak effort was easily saved by Derry keeper Brian Maher.

Cameron Elliott came on as a sub in the last twenty five minutes. He missed a sitter when Dundalk were 2-0 down, shooting awkwardly wide in front of an empty net.

The hero from Friday night’s win had missed a great chance to bring Dundalk back into the game.

Minutes later, Ryan O’Kane put in a cross from the right and Pat Hoban headed wide when he should have scored.

Darragh Leahy was injured in a brave tackle he made close to the halfway line midway through the first half.

It’s too early to see if he will be missing on Friday night.

Stephen O’Donnell left Pat Hoban, Ryan O’Kane and Keith Ward on the bench from the side that beat Cork City on Friday night in Oriel.

John Martin started as did Robbie McCourt, Paul Doyle and Johannes Yi-Koko.

Raheen Tulloch missed the game through injury. There were no defenders on the Dundalk bench.

Stephen O’Donnell told me after the game that he thought Dundalk were poor on the night.

Dundalk competed poorly in their duels. O’Donnell pointed out that if that is not done, more often than not they would not come out the right side of a result.

The Dundalk boss said he made the four changes to the team from Friday as he wanted to keep the side fresh for the weekend game with Bohemians.

He said that Pat Hoban was not long back, and he played one hundred minutes last Friday night.

He says that with three games in a week, players have to be looked after and there has to be a little bit of squad rotation.

The manager says that Darragh Leahy got a heavy impact in the tackle he was involved in. But he says he did not think it was anything more serious than that.

He said that his side missed two big chances when Cameron Eliott and Pat Hoban could have scored when they were 2-0 down. Had they scored the game might have had a different complexion.

He said that from a bigger picture as regards competing and physicality,  he thought Dundalk were awful last night.

The manager accepted that Dundallk conceded 3 very poor goals.

O’Donnell says he did not think Derry conceded much in the first half.

But he says that they have very good players.

The manager believes that even in games they have not won, they have totally dominated.

Again, he said Dundalk gave away poor goals and teams just simply can not do that.

The point was raised that Dundalk have had thirteen players injured in their last fourteen games who did not appear for the next games.

Stephen O’Donnell responded by saying last night’s injury was a contact injury to Darragh Leahy as it was a tackle.

He said what can you do as it is a physical game.

He says that he did not know if Darragh Leahy will be missing for Friday and will know more in the next 24 hours.

He accepted that they have been hit by a shortage of defenders through injury.

He was hopeful of getting some players back soon. He said he would see how some of the injured defenders progress over the next 72 hours and then they would see if any would be available for Friday’s game against Bohemians. 

He accepted that Bohemians would have an advantage on Friday night as they had no game on Monday night.

He pointed out that the reason they had some Monday night games was because they are playing in Europe.

He says they were playing Monday’s now to free up games in July to allow them prepare for Europe properly.

He says he would take that option any day of the week. The manager said that as last night was the last of the Monday night games, it will allow his management team and the players to have more freedom to prepare for league games and for Europe as well.

But there is no doubt the manager has big problems with the injuries some of his defenders have sustained. It leaves him with a serious  crisis in that department.

That was shown last night in Derry on a beautiful summer’s night as the Foylesiders just brushed past Dundalk with ease.