IT’S NO GAME FOR RY BABIES
Delaney: Football is cut-throat.. you can’t afford to take any prisoners
DYLAN CONNOLLY wants to end this season on a high after leaving behind “pub stuff” in Bray.
Cup-tied for Dundalk’s League Cup success, the 22-year-old is desperate to win his first senior medal in Sunday’s FAI Cup final.
“It would be a brilliant end to the time in that mad place,” said the Dubliner, reflecting on his eventual transfer from Bray.
“It wasn’t a great 2017 for me off the pitch, I had a lot of trouble. Hopefully on the pitch now on Sunday I can kick on into 2018.”
A prolific scorer at the Carlisle Grounds, Connolly wanted to move to Dundalk 12 months ago.
“I was let down,” he said. “Last year was a good year for me on the pitch and I thought I drove the team on nearly by myself.
“Then I tried to come here at the end of last year, I wasn’t allowed go and I was promised this, that and the other and that all fell through. RYAN DELANEY joined Cork City as a boy but he’ll leave as a man. This Sunday’s FAI Cup final against Dundalk will be the 21-year-old’s final game for the Rebels.
The towering centre-back has been immense for the champions, having joined on loan from Championship strugglers Burton.
Initially snapped up until the summer, his loan was extended for the rest of the season and he started 30 of Cork’s 33 league games, scoring six top flight goals along the way.
Delaney found it difficult to make the breakthrough at Burton under boss Nigel Clough (inset) and the lack of structured reserve team football didn’t help his cause. But a season on Leeside has brought him on leaps and bounds and he won’t be hiding
“I signed a two year deal there, a new one, because it was a great deal. If they’re handing out contracts like that, you’re going to sign. But I was told in March that the money wasn’t there, so I knew before anyone that there were problems.
“They had to sell me in the end. Carnage, really.”
Connolly recalls how his first day at Dundalk was similar to working with Mick Mccarthy at Ipswich.
He laughed: “At the first training in the shadows on his return to England.
Delaney said: “This spell with Cork has helped me so much.
“There have been different experiences that helped me improve as a player and become more confident on the pitch and as a person.”
Burton proved a different world to what Delaney had been used to at
Wexford Youths, and it took time to adjust.
“When I went over,
I wasn’t in full-time training – I was at Wexford and I was in college up in IT Carlow.
“It was a big step up to play against people in the professional game for 10 years.
“They have a reserve team but it’s not a fixed league so you’re not playing every week.
“I might play once every three or four weeks which wasn’t ideal. And even the environment of the reserve team wasn’t great.
“It wasn’t very competitive, people didn’t really seem to be too up for the games. It was just a case of getting through and I felt that wasn’t right for me.”
But armed with a league session I was going ‘f ****** hell!’ And I’m fast!
“At Bray, it was training on Tuesday and Thursday and then playing Friday. It’s pub (team) stuff, whereas here you have to get used to the intensity.
“The training is so sharp. It felt like I was back at Ipswich. It takes a few weeks to get used to it and then you feel grand.”
But he wants to fit in with his team-mates in another way now.
“I’ve not won anything, while everyone here has and are winners. I want to get that first medal on winner’s medal, Delaney is eyeing a first-team role at Burton and doesn’t care who he upsets.
“I won’t be as nice as when I went over first. You feel that bit more aggressive in a game instead of being nicey nice when I first went over from Wexford. “It was, ‘Get through training, don’t really annoy anyone’. But at this stage you have to worry about yourself and give 110 per cent in training.
“It’s not a very nice environment at the end of the day. There are a lot players coming in, a lot of different attitudes around the place you’ve just got to collide with.
“In football, you’ve got to look after yourself. It’s cut-throat. Everyone needs a contract and everyone is fighting for places.
“There’s only a certain amount of nice you can be and you’ve just got to worry about yourself.
“This time I’m completely different. I’m going over with what I’ve achieved, playing in Europe and the different experiences. I might bring something to the team that they don’t already have.” board and then kick on.
“I can go far – very far, I think. I’ve ambitions to play abroad. People always look at England but we play in Europe, and you want to attract a European club, like in Holland or somewhere sunny!
“I want to have a good off-season and hit the gym hard, come back even stronger and fitter, hopefully light up the league again.”