DUNDALK’S DOUBLE DELIGHT!
DUNDALK sealed the club’s fourth League and FAI Cup double with victory over Cork City in the Aviva Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
For manager Stephen Kenny it was his second double in four years, following the triumph in 2015. It was his sixth major trophy in his six seasons with the Lilywhites having being crowned League champions in 2014, 2015 and 2016 alongside this season’s triumph.
A clearly emotional Stephen Kenny celebrated wildly with Dundalk supporters upon the final whistle, stating afterwards that he didn’t want another repeat of the FAI Cup Final disapppointments of 2016 and 2017 when rivals Cork City lifted the famous trophy.
‘We didn’t want to face going back to Dundalk tonight without it. It would have been difficult to face going up the road without it to be honest. I couldn’t even bear thinking about it. It’s our second double and we should really have three doubles I feel. It was important to do that today’.
Six Dundalk players now join Martin Lawlor in a very special club of winning league and cup doubles with Dundalk twice.
Goalkeeper Gary Rogers, defenders Sean Gannon, Brian Gartland and Dane Massey alongside the team’s longest serving players Chris Shields and John Mountney were members of the 2015 double winning side.
Previously Martin Lawlor who won the league and cup double in 1979 and 1988 had held the distinction of being the Lilywhites only double-double winner.
DUNDALK’S prospects of mounting a challenge for Leinster League honours this season now hang by a thread after they slipped to a second narrow defeat on the bounce last Saturday.
One point was the margin away to Bective in their previous league outing and this time bottom club Kilkenny pulled out all the stops to end deserving winners at Mill Road - a result that tightens things up at the foot of the table.
With a daunting-looking All-Ireland Junior Cup quarter-final away to Enniscorthy coming up this Saturday, it will take a massive improvement all round for Dundalk to come out of that one with a victory.
And also looming on the horizon is the first Louth derby of the season the following weekend.
Dundalk should have gone into this game in confident mood after beating Instonians on their own patch in the All-Ireland competition seven days earlier, but their kick-off at the start didn’t go the required 10 metres and only for a couple of handling errors Kilkenny would have been in for two early tries.
The rain was belting down in the early stages and Robert Williams’ incisive kick to the corner gave Dundalk field position for a brief spell, only for Kilkenny to secure turnover ball in front of their posts.
The visitors’ number 8 then made a superb line break, culminating in another impressive backline move which ended with Dundalk being penalised for not rolling away, but the influential Kilkenny scrum half pulled the resulting kick to the left of the posts.
The same player then sliced a long-range penalty to the right, shortly after the Kilkenny full back had dropped the ball within sight of the Dundalk try line.
With the rain easing off the away side weren’t to be denied, though, and on 33 minutes they launched another slick passing move which ended with one of their backs es- caping Robert Farrell’s attempted tackle to score.
Tempers threatened to boil over after an incident involving Dundalk captain Enda Murphy, and that seemed to bring the home side to life as Tiernan Gonnelly’s rampaging run took his team up to the opposition 22, but they conceded a penalty shortly after and once more Kilkenny heaved a collective sigh of relief.
Entering first-half injury time, though, the visitors’ discipline let them down as a late tackle on player coach Mike Walls was followed by a lineout infringement and a yellow card for the offending player. And in the seventh minute of added time Walls and Ray McCabe combined to put full back Conor Hennessy over for the equalising try, which Daragh Conroy was unable to convert from the right touchline.
Not surprisingly, Dundalk started the second half on the front foot, still playing against 14 men.
John Smith and Sam Weber carried well, the home side dominated the scrums and in Greg Whately they had an impressive ball-winner in the lineouts, but they were unable to find a way past Kilkenny’s well organised defence.
The visitors, briefly back to their full complement, then had another player sin-binned and this time Conroy made them pay as his 30-metre penalty gave Dundalk an 8-5 lead. However, the scrum half then kicked the ball out on the full to give Kilkenny field position, and after winning the subsequent lineout they somehow mauled the ball all the way from the 22 to the try line for a shock score.
Despite their kicker slipping as he put boot to ball the conversion attempt squeezed over the bar.
Even worse was to follow for Dundalk as their opponents made a line break straight from the restart and a missed Conroy tackle allowed their number 5 to barge over for a third try from long range.
An off-the-ball incident involving a Kilkenny player and Laurence Steen saw both players sent to the bin and the home side finally added to their tally in the first minute of injury time when Williams collected Walls’ clever kick in behind the away defence and touched down.
Conroy’s conversion attempt just had the legs as the flags went up, making it a two-point game, but despite referee Phil Kane playing on for several more minutes the home side never threatened to conjure a winning score.Indeed, in the final moments Kilkenny were peppering the Dundalk line looking for yet another try. DUNDALK: Conor Hennessy; Patrick Reilly, Sam Weber, Ray McCabe, Robert Williams; Mike Walls, Daragh Conroy; Robert Farrell, Sean Arrowsmith, John Smith; Greg Whately, Enda Murphy; James McConnon, Laurence Steen, Tiernan Gonnelly. Replacements: Jonathan Gray, Conor Williams, Niall Smullen, Alister McCormack, David Murdock.