BIRTHDAY BOY ON

everyone coming up to me saying ‘you’ve cost me a fortune this season’. ‘We’ve the best defence in the league and we’ve some amount of clean sheets this year. That’s our main goal not to concede but obviously when you set a standard of scoring goals, it does get to you. ‘To put it lightly, it has pissed me off big time. It’s frustrating. I look back at the Bohs away game earlier in the year and I should have had two that game. I head one into the ground and I don’t know whether it was from that hill in Dalymount or the dry pitch that day but it just bounced over the bar. From the other one, Shane Supple even said to me after that he didn’t know how he saved it. Down in Cork I should have scored too and there were one or two others so if you put in one or two of them then it’s a different story.

‘Obviously I had less games this year with the injury at the start of the year but it’s something in my mind that I’m trying to fix. Once we’re winning though, it doesn’t really matter.’

Given his tendency to score big goals like in the league title winning matches of 2014 and 2016, as well as in the Champions League away to Rosenborg last year, could Gartland be saving up a goal for Cup final day in the Aviva?

‘I thought I got a header at the end against Pat’s so I thought, this is it again. Listen, I hope so but it doesn’t matter who scores once we’re lifting that trophy and we’re celebrating at the end.

‘Obviously it would be the icing on the cake for any player to score in a Cup final when you win and I’d love it as much as anyone but the goal

is