‘Not good enough’ insists O’Donnell

HEAD down, rubbing his eyes, Dundalk captain Stephen O’Donnell faced the media scrum in the narrow corridor beneath the main stand at Eamonn Deacy Park on Friday night as a man deflated.

Nearby a group of kids waited to meet their hometown hero.

On this occasion the trip home to his native Galway was not one to savour for the 31-year-old.

A fourth defeat in 11 matches has left Dundalk’s hopes of four league titles in-a-row in serious jeopardy. There have been a number of setbacks this season but this was by far the hardest to stomach.

O’Donnell, as you’d expect, pulled no punches though. The conversation with the press pack lasted less than two minutes during which he described Dundalk’s performance both on Friday night and in the opening series of games as ‘not good enough’ no fewer than six times.

‘It’s a shocking result,’ he said frankly.

‘We didn’t do enough. It’s as simple as that. It’s just not good enough.

‘The pitch wasn’t great but you should still find a way to win games. Each and every one of us wasn’t good enough, it’s as simple as that.

‘We had all the ball. I don’t think they created a chance. For the first goal I let Vinny run off me but we didn’t create enough chances in the second half and we got collared at the end there.’

When it was put to him that Dundalk were perhaps unlucky to lose to Gary Shanahan’s 93rd minute strike, O’Donnell didn’t look for excuses.

‘It’s not unfortunate, it’s just not good enough,’ he said.

‘You need to put teams away but we didn’t create enough chances to say that we were unfortunate. When you don’t take chances there’s always a chance of that happening and it did.’

Dundalk will need no reminding that Friday’s defeat, coupled with Cork City’s 2-1 win at home to Bray Wanderers, leaves them 12 points off the pace in second place.

O’Donnell said his side cannot worry about Cork at present, insisting they needed to get their own ‘house in order’ first.

‘We need to forget about talking about Cork,’ he said defiantly.

‘We need to just concentrate on ourselves and get our own house in order and start winning games every Friday.

‘It’s not good enough to lose four games out of the first 11. I’ve nothing else to say apart from it’s not good enough. It’s all about winning on Friday and we’re not doing that at the minute so it’s not good enough.’