Dundalk's Burns controversy deflected from the bigger question over player welfare

There was something revealing about Friday night in Tallaght, WRITES NIALL NEWBERRY.

For all the talk of Shamrock Rovers finally getting one over Dundalk, and for all the significance attached to a 3-2 victory which ended their unbeaten record against the newly promoted side this season, it was difficult to leave Tallaght believing that Rovers had somehow demonstrated that they were operating on another level.

Quite the opposite. If anything, Dundalk once again demonstrated why their fourth-place position is not merely a pleasant surprise on their return to the Premier Division, but a reflection of a side that could quite easily be considerably higher in the table.

They lost, yes. But Dundalk continue to play football with an ambition that is conspicuously absent from much of the league. They play on the front foot, take risks, commit players forward and make mistakes as a consequence.

Occasionally, those mistakes cost them points. But if the alternative is the safety-first football that has become so familiar in this division, there is something refreshing about a team prepared to actually have a go.

That was Dundalk again in Tallaght: twice behind, twice level, ultimately beaten 3-2. It was Rovers’ first victory over them at the third attempt this season, and perhaps that statistic explains some of the emotion surrounding the fixture better than anything else.

Stephen Bradley certainly seemed to have taken the previous two encounters personally. His pre-match assessment offered little generosity towards Dundalk when reflecting on February’s 1-1 draw in Tallaght, when Dundalk played with 10 men, or May’s 1-0 victory at Oriel Park, a game which Dundalk deservedly won.

By the end of Friday night, the temperature had risen further. A member of the Rovers coaching staff was sent off, another was booked, and a supporter somehow found his way onto the pitch in an apparent attempt to confront Daryl Horgan after Dundalk’s second equaliser.

That last incident should not be dismissed as just another bit of Friday-night theatre.

A supporter entering the field with the apparent intention of confronting a player is a serious player-safety issue, and it deserves considerably more attention than it is likely to receive.

Then there was Cian Barrett. The Rovers defender suffered what looked to be a serious injury following a challenge involving Dundalk left-back Bobby Burns.

Bradley subsequently launched an extraordinary criticism of Burns, while describing referee Robert Harvey’s failure to intervene as “incredible”. There is a legitimate discussion to be had about the challenge.

Football is a physical sport and injuries happen. If the challenge was deemed worthy of sanction, then sanction it.

But there was something rather uncomfortable about the subsequent focus on Burns when Barrett, visibly struggling, was allowed to remain on the pitch for approximately 20 minutes.

He was eventually carried away on a stretcher in stoppage time after another innocuous challenge involving Burns. If player welfare is the concern, then surely player welfare has to apply before the referee blows his whistle as well as afterwards.

The irony is that Burns is hardly the sort of player with a reputation for dangerous challenges. He has never received a straight red card during his senior career.

Yet somehow the narrative became about the Dundalk left-back rather than the decision to leave an apparently injured Rovers player on the pitch for so long. And perhaps that tells you something about the mood around the game.

Because, strip away the controversy, and what was left was another fairly typical Shamrock Rovers performance. They won. That, ultimately, is what Rovers do. They rarely take the breath away.

They rarely produce the sort of football that has supporters leaving the stadium wondering what they have just witnessed. But they are exceptionally good at getting over the line. And, in the League of Ireland, that has been enough.

Rovers have dominated domestically in an era in which no sustained challenger has emerged to genuinely threaten their position.

Their ability to win titles should not be diminished, but neither should the limitations of the side be ignored simply because the league has failed to produce a consistent alternative. Europe is the obvious measuring stick.

It is now 15 years since Rovers eliminated a continental opponent that had previously reached the proper group stage of the Champions League or Europa League. For all the domestic success, that record remains difficult to dress up.

Which brings us back to Dundalk. Because if you were looking for a side in this league that you would actually pay to watch, rather than merely watch because you support them, there is a compelling argument that Dundalk would be near the top of the list.

They are certainly more adventurous. They are certainly more entertaining. And they are doing it having only just returned to the Premier Division.

The great frustration for Ciaran Kilduff will be the points Dundalk have thrown away. Had they recovered even half of what they have surrendered from winning positions, they would have entered Friday night just one point behind Rovers.

Just think about that. A newly promoted Dundalk, with a squad assembled without the resources available to the established title holders, could have gone into Tallaght within touching distance of Shamrock Rovers. Instead, they remain fourth.

And with nine games left, that is still a remarkable position. Shelbourne can overtake them if they win their game in hand, but there is another route into Europe which Dundalk should now be taking very seriously: the FAI Cup.

Castlebar Celtic stand between Dundalk and a quarter-final place at Oriel Park on Saturday. Shelbourne are already gone, while either St Patrick’s Athletic or Shamrock Rovers will also disappear from the competition in this round.

Suddenly, the road to the Aviva Stadium in November does not look quite so long. And the prize at the end of it is potentially European football.

When Dundalk climbed into the top four after the opening nine games, the sensible expectation was that supporters would have gladly accepted eighth place and survival.

Nobody would have complained. In fact, most probably would have bitten your hand off for it. Yet here they are, nine games from the finish, still sitting fourth.

Five of those games will be played at Oriel Park. The other four are against teams in the bottom half. Relegation has barely entered the conversation.

That alone is remarkable when you consider that Waterford, Drogheda United and Sligo Rovers, among others, have been operating with larger budgets and yet find themselves staring nervously at the bottom of the table.

That is why Kilduff should now be considered one of the leading candidates for manager of the season.

He has taken a club returning from the First Division and made them competitive against the best-funded side in the country. More importantly, he has given Dundalk an identity. There is ambition in the way they play. There is courage in it too.

The difficulty is that football ambition does not exist independently of financial reality.

The departures of Gbemi Arubi and Eoin Kenny were difficult circumstances for Dundalk to avoid, but there will inevitably be a sense that both situations might have been managed differently had the club’s financial position been stabilised.

That has not happened. No new investors have arrived, while the legal dispute surrounding the club’s ownership has cast a shadow over the season away from the pitch.

And yet, somehow, Dundalk keep going. That may ultimately be the most impressive thing of all. They have been forced to operate amid uncertainty off the pitch while exceeding expectations on it.

They have lost points from winning positions, suffered setbacks and seen players depart, and they have still reached the final nine games of the season sitting fourth in the Premier Division.

So perhaps Dundalk supporters are entitled to dream a little. A European return would have sounded fanciful at the beginning of the season. A trophy would sound even more so.

But this is a Dundalk side that has spent the entire campaign making a mockery of what was supposed to be realistic.

And if Friday night proved anything, it was not that Shamrock Rovers are untouchable. It was that Dundalk are closer to them than they have any right to be. That should worry Rovers considerably more than the result should reassure them.