Dundalk paying price for messy pre-season preparations

A JOURNALIST friend with a lifetime knowledge of the League of Ireland recently confronted me at a match asking ‘what’s happened to Dundalk’.

‘You tell me’ was my curt reply, ignoring his taunts that I was a sore loser, before pressing him for his theory.

His view, which admittedly would find some support even with Dundalk fans, is that for the first time in three seasons John Caulfield, the Cork manager, recruited better than Stephen Kenny during the close season.

That reasoning, however, ignores the obvious that Cork had lost none of their top players from the previous season allowing the painless integration into the team of their new recruits whereas Dundalk having lost three top players, coupled with early season injuries, have had to try and blend the new players into the team a lot quicker than the manager would have liked.

No less a figure than Roy Keane referred last week to this very point saying that Cork who had gained that extra bit of confidence from beating Dundalk in last season’s Cup final had made some ‘clever signings’ in the close season to augment an already strong, hard working side, while the Irish assistant manager added : ‘The loss of two or three top players in the last year or two seems to have caught up with Dundalk.’

Keane’s point is well made, and another Munster man, former Ireland and Munster back row forward, Alan Quinlan, now a Sky pundit and Irish Independent columnist, made an observation at the weekend that perhaps illustrates to some extent why Dundalk are struggling at this stage.

Quinlan was commenting not on Dundalk’s early season form, but on Connacht’s failure to kick on from last season’s outstanding season in the Pro-12, when he made the point that as a player he knew how incredibly difficult it was to maintain that same hunger for success having soared the heights of success the previous season.

Connacht, Quinlan maintained ‘paid the price for having a messy pre-season that never went according to plan’. Much the same could be said of Dundalk. Pre-season was a mess because of the uncertainty generated by the ownership issue over the development centre, the pitch, and consequently the club’s future in Oriel Park, the shorter than normal close season caused by their European schedule ending in December, the critical unexpected loss of Ronan Finn, injuries to key players that badly hampered their normal pre-season training, and perhaps mostly importantly the signing of new players.

Throughout the close season the question on almost every supporters lips was about new signings and the plans for Oriel Park, with the new pitch only installed days before the first game with Shamrock Rovers.

Most of the new signings were made just before the start of the campaign, and while initially there was a very favourable reaction to the acquisitions, the question now being asked is if there was a hint of panic buying in a number of the signings, especially after the performances in recent games.

The manager would dispute that, but unquestionably after Friday night’s performance against Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght - one of the poorest by a Dundalk team during Stephen Kenny’s four year tenure - supporters were, for perhaps the first time, starting to question his judgement on the quality of one or two of the players he has recruited.

In addition there may be some credence in Alan Quinlan’s point about the difficulty in maintaining that same hunger for success for Dundalk on Friday night lacked the urgency in their play that had been the hallmark of their success in recent seasons and which led to a supporter near me asking if Rovers had an extra player on the field in the first half.

Of course it has to be accepted that three of the back four that formed the bedrock of the team in the last three seasons were missing against Rovers, and the uncertainty in defence in the first half and which contributed to Rovers two gaols was obvious to all.

Changing the format to a back three of Barrett, Vemmelund and Hoare in the second half helped in curbing the threat that centre-forward Gary Shaw was presenting, but the extra solidity was nullified by the woeful distribution of the back three, leading to the conclusion that they would have to improve considerably this aspect of their play before they could play in a back three.

Harsh judgement of the defenders and indeed any of the new players must be reserved for it is never easy to settle into a struggling team, and they must be given time as others have, notably Daryl Horgan, Robbie Benson, Patrick McEleney and even Ronan Finn - who ran the show on Friday night - to find their feet.

Friday night loss, Dundalk’s fifth in the campaign, when they lost just 10 League matches in the previous three title winning seasons (6 last season, 1 in 2015 season and 3 in 2014) really settles the title race even with just over a third of the season gone for Cork’s tally of 36 points is almost half of Dundalk’s average winning tally of 76 points in the last three seasons.

The task now for the management and the players is to try and rescue their season via Europe, the Cup competitions and guaranteeing European qualification next season.

It will not be easy for morale is low, and the team is struggling to find a winning system with the absence of a link between midfield and attack a problem that will not be easily fixed because of the absence of a player with the ball retention of Ronan Finn in midfield.

Robbie Benson can’t come back quick enough to bolster the midfield and Sean Gannon’s absence as an attacking force on the right is depriving the team of a vital option.

It is time to start thinking about steadying the ship, and going back to the basics that have brought the club to the top of the Irish game.