Europa League is not even on Horgan’s radar

DARYL Horgan said he always believed Dundalk could beat BATE Borisov on Tuesday night and was delighted to be proven right.

After what he described as a ‘horrow show’ in the first leg, which the Lilywhites lost 1-0, the Galway native knew that the only way was up in the second leg.

Little did he realise the improvement would be so pronounced though.

‘What a night,’ he declared afterwards.

‘We’ve outplayed a team that is regularly in the Champions League group stages. We went away last week and we had a horror show to be brutally honest. They were far better but we have come back and turned it around.

‘It was an incredible performance from everyone tonight and it was thoroughly deserved to win 3-0.

‘I wouldn’t have described it as a horrow show last week but I can say it now’ he laughed.

‘That was something we all said that we weren’t happy with how it went in the first leg. We were all very, very disappointed.

‘You go to BATE and lose 1-0, a lot of teams would say it’s an all right result but we were very disappointed because we felt we didn’t do ourselves justice but tonight we showed what we can do and thoroughly deserved the win.’

Now that BATE have been dispatched Dundalk are at least guaranteed a place in the group stages of the Europa League but Horgan insists that hasn’t even entered his head.

‘The Europa League is not coming into my mind at all, it’s Champions League all the way,’ said the winger, who turns 24 on Wednesday.

‘We’re two games away from it and we’ve already beaten a team that is regulars in the group stages and if we play like that two more times we could easily be in the group stages.’

Horgan had a big role to play in the opening goal, weaving his way into space before teeing a cross up to the back post for David McMillan to head home. He insists it was a crucial moment in the tie.

‘We were playing well without really carving out chanc- es,’ he said.

‘I suppose we had John Mountney’s chance before that but my cross just landed on Davey’s head and he’s just been scoring for fun at the minute and it was another unbelievable header. I think he’s one of the top scorers now in the Champions League in Ireland, which is just absolutely incredible.

‘Especially when we got the second goal, they probably weren’t expecting us to be as good. They came out and wanted to quicken the tempo in the second half but we defended brilliantly and when we had it we could play and we opened them up at times.

‘McEleney did unbelievable for the second goal. We were attacking from the right and our left back was in the box so that’s a sign of bravery and it was another unbelievable finish from Davey.’

Dundalk were praised for not resting on their laurels having opened the scoring and then gone 2-0 up with Horgan well aware that an away goal from BATE at any point would have left the Lilywhites chasing the game once again.

‘It was something we talked about at half-time because we were one miss-kick away or one deflection away from being another two goals behind so it was something we said that we couldn’t let happen.

‘We went out in the second half and tried to play the same way. They maybe upped the tempo a small bit but we still played very well and we hit them on the counter when we had to, controlled the ball when we had to and more importantly got the two goals.

‘You never have it until you have it but it was brilliant and a great finish by Robbie for our third,’ he said.