‘Duff double sees striker hit 30 mark

CIARAN Kilduff is confident he has many more goals to contribute at Dundalk after his late double against Drogheda Utd on Friday night saw him hit the 30 goal mark for the club.

The impressive return has come in just 73 appearances - 33 from the start and 40 off the bench - and while the striker insists he would like to play more, he told The Argus he is happy to continue his bit-part role for the good of the team.

‘That’s a good landmark to hit,’ he said when informed of the tally.

‘I’m proud of that one because I want to score as many goals as I can for the club. When you’re at a club like this usually the goals are important ones. Tonight’s weren’t but in general they are big goals and big moments because you’re challenging at the top end of the table and fighting on all fronts in cups and Europe.

‘It’s a good place to be. I’m hoping there’s a lot more goals as well to come this year as well so I can improve on that tally,’ he said.

The 28-year-old, who joined Dundalk from St Patrick’s Athletic in July 2015, said it was hard not being involved from the start of matches but insisted he was happy to dovetail with David McMillan.

‘I’ve been waiting for my opportunities,’ he said.

‘The last league game I started was back against Cork down there when I got sent off so I’ve been stewing on that one for a while now.

‘Obviously Dave’s form has been excellent and I’m delighted for him. He’s a great striker too but if the two of us can keep chipping away like we did last year then it’ll be good. The way we play you can only play one or the other. For one of us, opportunities are always going to be rare because one of us is always going to be doing well because we play in a team that creates so much so the centre forward should be scoring goals at this club.

‘Tonight we got four between us so it’s a good night’s work but there’s a lot more games to be won this year and hopefully a lot more goals to be scored.

‘We’re both doing what we want to do for the team. It’s not like we’re in complete competition with each other. I’m happy when he scores and he’s happy when I score. Obviously we both want to be on the pitch but that’s just the nature of the beast at the club at the minute that we play one up front but there’s very few teams who play two up top now anywhere.’

Kilduff described Friday’s victory over Drogheda as ‘important’ as Dundalk look to build up form ahead of next month’s European campaign.

‘We’ve probably learned a lot about ourselves from the game against Cork before the break. We knew we needed a reaction and there was probably no better time to have a derby game because we felt like we had something to prove.

‘It was a good night’s work but we want to finish this season very strongly now and this is purely just the start of that.

‘Europe has to be a major focus now. We haven’t given up anything domestically but Europe, we saw the fruits that it bears last year. They’re memorable nights and memorable occasions and we’re looking for more of them this year.

‘We haven’t given up the league but Europe probably has become a massive priority for us because it’s a huge opportunity for us and we’ll try to carry on from last year’s feat,’ said Kilduff.