​Kilduff admits Dundalk are in a ‘bad moment’ after loss

Ciaran Kilduff admitted his Dundalk FC side are in a “bad moment” after Galway United compounded a miserable run of form by spoiling the Lilywhites’ centenary celebrations at Oriel Park.

​Speaking to the Dundalk Democrat afterwards, the Dundalk manager described the 2-1 defeat as “terrible” as his team slipped to a seventh successive SSE Airtricity League Premier Division game without victory.

“We just didn’t deal with the things we needed to deal with. Our final ball, our quality let us down and it’s beyond frustrating,” Kilduff said.

“The run we’re on right now speaks for itself. It looks like we have forgotten how to win these games, which is weird because the first half of the season we showed all the strengths in that. We got punished and deservedly so.”

Dundalk have now failed to win any of their last seven league matches, while their home form has become an increasing concern. Kilduff pointed to defeats by Drogheda United, Waterford and Galway, alongside a draw with Sligo Rovers, as evidence of a damaging decline.

“When you haven’t won in such a while at home as well. We drew with Sligo, lost to Drogheda, lost to Waterford, lost to Galway. It’s not a good run,” he said.

“So maybe confidence is low, maybe morale, but they’re a great group. They know where they are in the league. They know how the season has gone so far for us. It’s just a huge element of frustration. Nothing mattered but the win tonight.”

The manner of Galway’s goals was particularly galling for Kilduff. The opening goal came after goalkeeper Hugo Cunha’s long free-kick was helped on towards Ed McCarthy, who produced an excellent finish, while Kris Twardek capitalised on a failure to deal with a long throw for the second.

Dundalk have now conceded 19 goals from set-pieces this season, comfortably the highest figure in the division, and Kilduff acknowledged that the problem had become impossible to ignore.

“We conceded off a free-kick and a throw-in. We’re at the highest level of football in this country and there’s probably a lot of lads out there for the first time at that level and it’s showing,” he said.

“There’s indecision. They looked comfortable defending their penalty box. We didn’t. Every ball in our box looked like it could end up in the net. Every ball in their box was either going into keeper’s hands or getting cleared. So it was a very frustrating night. There’s unacceptable aspects of it. We need to get better.”

There were at least some positives for the home side, with Trevor Clarke again prominent. The former Shamrock Rovers player scored his second goal in as many matches with a superb free-kick five minutes from time, giving the hosts a late glimpse of a route back into the game.

Kilduff felt Clarke had been the outstanding player on the pitch but was frustrated that his team had left themselves with too much to do.

“I thought Trevor was the best player on the pitch and his goal topped it off,” he said.

“We left ourselves for it to be drastic and dramatic and we didn’t need to do that. We’re better than that in moments. We’ve shown to be better than that. But there tonight we got done on the two things that we knew we had to be careful of. And that’s the frustrating thing. Those lads are hurting in there, but I think we’ve got to the point now where actions will speak louder than words.”

Clarke’s goal did at least inject some late urgency into the home side’s play, but Galway were largely comfortable defending their penalty area and frustrated the hosts throughout the night.

“You’re chasing the game and they’re quite comfortable there. In fairness to them, they’re great at defending their penalty box. We didn’t even break them down. We scored from a free-kick. I’ve seen them do that to Bohs a couple of weeks ago and get a draw in Dalymount,” Kilduff said.

“Fair play to them on that, but we have too much quality to look as toothless as that. Watching their keeper catching the ball every time and running the clock down. It was frustrating, but we’re all in this. We have to dig our way out. We know we’re in a bad moment. It hurts.”