'There was a lot of pressure on us at the start of the year to follow the legend that is Stephen Kenny'

John Gill has admitted that there was “a lot of pressure on us to follow the legend that is Stephen Kenny”, but Dundalk FC’s first-team coach glowed with pride as he praised his record-breaking players after the club’s easiest title win yet.

Gill led The Lilywhites to the First Division and promotion with virtually the last kick of the season back in 2008, but there has been no such drama on his return to Oriel Park this year.

For the first time, Dundalk’s golden generation have been crowned in September, with four games to spare, after accumulating 65 points from the last 69 available.

Their 23-match unbeaten run, including 21 wins, is now the club’s best-ever sequence, with Monday’s 3-2 victory over Shamrock Rovers breaking their previous record from the early ‘90s.

Dundalk are now 15 points clear at the top and could yet become the widest-margin champions in League of Ireland history, with Bohemians’ 19-point win in 2008 a real target. However, it wasn’t always smooth sailing for Vinny Perth and his team this season, and Gill was quick to point that out.

He spoke of April 12, a night when they fell 13 points behind The Hoops after losing in Sligo, and April 15, the evening the revival began with Patrick Hoban’s 95th-minute winning penalty against Bohs.

“I’m thrilled. I’m only a small cog in a big wheel, but it’s just a privilege – I said it when I came back here, it’s a special place. It’s a special bunch of players,” Gill said, as he added a Premier Division medal to that title success of 11 years ago.

“There was a lot of pressure on us at the start of the year to follow the legend that is Stephen Kenny – rightly so. I’m thrilled he was here tonight and I hope his health is okay. Stephen has set such a high standard. Vinny has taken the mantle on and we’ve kept that baton where it should be.

“All credit must go to the players, but it’s a fantastic football club – I’ve said it all along. I’ve had many, many great nights here. Obviously, this caps the lot.

“It’s just a privilege to be around. I go back to the dark days when we lost two games earlier on in the season and we had a minute to go in injury-time against Bohs. But we pulled it back and we showed a lot of belief.

“We had a lot of injuries, we had a lot of problems injury-wise, we never had a full midfield to pick from all season.

“In fairness to the owners and the people that run the club, they backed us to have a deep squad. You can leave Andy Boyle out of the squad tonight and it’s very unfortunate. We’ve been consistent all year in the way that we’ve rotated, tried to look after players and rest them.

“I thought tonight we were fully-deserved winners. I thought some of the football we played was excellent. It was a bit nervy near the end, okay, but we did enough.”

Dundalk have now won the Premier Division, EA SPORTS Cup and President’s Cup, and could yet add the FAI Cup and Unite the Union Champions Cup over the coming weeks.

Gill was delighted to seal the league with a month still to go, and while their exit from European competition was disappointing, he said Slovan Bratislava’s 4-2 group-stage win over Turkish giants Beşiktaş last Thursday should be noted.

“It’s success for the whole club, the supporters and the owners – I’m thrilled for them. They’ve backed us to the hilt to get a good squad together,” Gill said.

“We’ll look back at Europe and maybe be a tinge disappointed, but then you look at Slovan during the week beating Besiktas. Honestly, I feel we were a couple of mistakes away from winning that tie.

“Sometimes, we’re very, very overcritical of ourselves and we are critical, but you have got to give this group and these players a huge amount of credit because they’re serial winners. They’re a credit to be around, on and off the pitch.”

While Sunday’s Extra.ie FAI Cup semi-final against Sligo Rovers at The Showgrounds is the immediate focus, Dundalk supporters will be keen to see some of their out-of-contract star players – such as Jamie McGrath and Patrick Hoban – tied down for 2020.

“We’d love to keep them, but it’s not our brief – that’s the club’s brief,” Gill said on potential new deals. “I think there are discussions ongoing and we’ll see what maybe happens in the next couple of weeks.

“We want to try to keep this group together. It’s a special group. There’s not much tinkering needed with it. You’ve only got to look at Slovan, a €9 million playing budget. You can say to yourself so be it, but these boys aren’t far away.

“We gave them a really good game over two legs. It mightn’t be good enough for certain people, but we know how near we were and how near we are.”