Six-point gap was a strange feeling

DUNDALK striker Ciaran Kilduff admitted it was a surreal feeling arriving at Oriel Park on Saturday night knowing his side were six points behind the league leaders in the table.

While his goal and two assists in the clash with his old club St Patrick’s Athletic quickly closed that back to three, he is anxious to ensure that the gap isn’t six points again come full-time in Turner’s Cross this Saturday.

After a disappointing defeat away to Derry City five days earlier, Dundalk responded in style against the Inchicore men to set themselves up nicely for this weekend’s clash against Cork City and Kilduff feels the display against Pat’s can give the side confidence heading to Leeside. ‘We always bounce back,’ he said. ‘There was probably a bit of pressure coming here tonight because we knew with the results last night that we were six off the top and I don’t think since I’ve been here we’ve ever been that far behind.

‘We knew we had a game in hand but a game in hand is only that, there’s no points for it yet so we knew we needed all three and thankfully we got them.’

While Saturday’s clash with John Caulfield’s side is a big game for both teams, Kilduff insisted it was too early in the season to declare it a ‘must win’.

‘We know ourselves it’s a long season. There’s not many easy games. It’s not a must-win but it’s a huge game.

‘We’ll be preparing as if it’s a mustwin but it’s not a catastrophe if we don’t. We’re not going down with that much pressure on us. We’re going down to do what we’ve done tonight and what we do most weeks which is to play well and if we do that we’ll be in with a fair shout of winning it.

‘We’ve won the league three times in-a-row here so we’ve no real doubts about ourselves. We can beat anyone on our day so we just have to go down and do ourselves justice. Cork are making good strides too so it’s just set up to be a really good game,’ he said.

Following on from the Derry defeat, getting back to winning ways was par- amount for Dundalk and Kilduff felt his opener a minute before half-time came at a crucial stage.

‘If you go in at 0-0 it’s a different dressing room and you’re beginning to feel the pressure of getting in front and the longer the clock ticks on they have more to hang on to. Going in 1-0 up though we knew that if we just got the next goal we’d be in a really strong position then and thankfully we did not so long after and what a goal to do it by Patrick.

‘Obviously my goal came at a really good time for us because we hit them then fairly quickly then after the break and it was probably game over then after that. Patrick McEleney was sensational tonight and his goals really topped off his performance. It was a great win for us.

‘All it does though is put us in a great position to go down to Cork and be full of confidence and hopefully we’ll just get a win.’

Kilduff was full of praise for double goalscorer McEleney and said, despite the defeat to Derry, Dundalk can be pleased with their start to the season.

‘I got two of the assists but I shouldn’t even claim the first considering Patrick ran from the halfway line. His individual performance tonight was sensational. He has been doing it now for the last month or two and we’ve needed it at times.

‘He got us out of trouble here against Limerick with a great individual goal and he has set up a lot of my goals. He is a pleasure to play with and just hopefully now he keeps it going because we’re ticking along nicely.

‘We’ve 12 points out of the first 15. It was disappointing to lose to Derry but we’ll put that behind us. After the start we’ve had and with the injuries we’ve had it was always going to be tough so to take 12 out of 15 we’ll take that and move on to a massive game next week.

‘12 points out of 15 is a good return. We would have obviously liked maximum points but we’ve had a very tough start and we go down to Cork next week with a nice bit of confidence after the win here and there’s no reason why we can’t go down there and increase our tally more,’ he said.