Hoban promises no let up
PAT Hoban insists neither he or his team-mates will be letting up between now and the end of the season despite having the title in the bag.
The striker took his tally of league goals to 27 with the opener in the 2-1 win away to Waterford FC on Friday night but with two league games still to come at home to Sligo Rovers this Friday and away to Bohemians seven days later, he has targeted even more goals to keep him firing ahead of next month’s FAI Cup final against Cork City.
A win over Sligo Rovers on Friday will see Dundalk set a new record of most points achieved in a season and Hoban insists he and his team-mates are hungry to land that honour.
‘We don’t want to let up at all,’ he told The Argus on Friday.
‘We want to beat the points record. That’s all that we’re talking about now. We don’t want to drop our standards one bit because if you do it’s hard to pick it up so we’ve got to make sure we’re professional in everything we do and we definitely showed that today.
‘There seems to be a record broken every week but we just have to make sure we stay on it and keep winning games of football because we have to keep the momentum going for the cup final. I thought in the second half we completely outclassed them and it could have been four or five. It was brilliant stuff really.’
His goal against Waterford means Hoban has now scored against every team in the league this season but while that is an impressive achievement, Hoban was more pleased with his side’s display.
‘Obviously it’s good to score against everyone in the league but I thought we were really good tonight, especially as we had a lot of suspensions and injuries as well.
‘I thought we controlled the game quite well. It was quite stop-start in the first half but we still had our chances and we were deserved the three points to be honest.’
While Friday’s goal was his 27th in the league, it was also a landmark 30th in all competitions this season. Worryingly for Sligo, Bohs and Cork, Hoban feels he has a few more in him yet.
‘I still want a few more to be honest with you, I don’t want to stop,’ he smiled.
‘It was a great ball from Ganno tonight and I just got over my man and headed it into the corner. Hopefully I can continue on scoring goals because if I can score then we normally keep a clean sheet so that means we win games. We’ve to make sure we’re on form week in, week out now until the end of the season.’
While Hoban would have liked to have got the trophy after the Pat’s game, he is looking forward to another night of celebration with supporters when the Premier Division crown is handed over on Friday.
‘We should have got the trophy after the Pat’s game but we still have to celebrate with the trophy so all in all hopefully Sligo is a full house so we can celebrate the trophy with the fans and that will be a good night for all,’ he said.