‘Hopefully it will end in a Drogheda win’
Mulvenna plotting the downfall of his hometown club as first Louth derby of the season kicks-off on Easter Monday
THERE’S no room for sentiment in football and Dundalk-native Tiarnan Mulvenna will be hoping for an away win when Drogheda United make the short journey up the M1 to face the Lilywhites in the Louth derby on Easter Monday (kick-off: 1pm).
Mulvenna, now 35, was with his hometown club Dundalk for well over a decade in total, firstly in two spells as a player and then as a coach working with the underage sides, but now he’s the first-team coach at Drogheda United and naturally he’s focused on helping plot another defeat for Stephen O’Donnell’s side.
“We’re in the professional game and we all want the best for ourselves first and foremost,” said Mulvenna (pictured below). “I was there for eight years (as a coach), but I will be working to make sure Drogheda are ahead of Dundalk and every other team possible.
“We are the only part-time team in the league and the others have more hours and more manpower and more resources, but if you take away the league table we are playing really well and playing an attractive style that people can come and enjoy.”
Lying two points behind Drogheda at the bottom of the table going into this weekend’s games, Dundalk are away to league leaders Shelbourne and they could find themselves cut further adrift going into Monday’s derby in Oriel Park.
The Lilywhites seem to have lurched from one crisis to another in recent years and that’s not something Mulvenna likes to see. Nor does he enjoy watching the intense scrutiny that head coach O’Donnell finds himself under, having both played alongside the Galway native and worked with him in more recent times.
“Even though I’m living in the town (of Dundalk), I only know what everyone else knows because all my focus is on Drogheda,” Mulvenna responded when asked what he thinks about the ongoing chaos at his former club.
“They have enough problems without me telling them how to fix things, but I think it’s well documented what’s going on at Dundalk and sometimes it doesn’t help when there’s stuff being aired in public and not kept in-house.
“You can see that Stephen is trying to bring the modern style of football in and he seems to have good people around him in Pat Cregg and Liam Burns who I know very well, but I don’t know whether the message isn’t sticking or whether the players aren’t good enough.
“I think Stephen’s done a good job over the last three years, but at the moment he’s going through a rough patch and he won’t enjoy being in it, but it’s just how they come out of it.”
In sharp contrast, Drogs boss Kevin Doherty isn’t faced with the same pressure as expectations are lower, and yet the Boynesiders could find themselves bottom of the table by Friday night if they don’t beat St Patrick’s Athletic. Encouraging performances haven’t been matched by their results and there’s been a particular focus on Drogheda’s failure to convert enough of the chances they’ve created. But Mulvenna doesn’t appear too concerned.
“I think we should be really delighted with the way things are going and it’s super-critical if you dive into shot conversion rates,” he responded.
“In the Sligo game we had 20 shots on target, the most by any team this year. If you look at Frantz (Pierrot) he is getting into the right areas and it’s just that one hasn’t gone in for him yet. He probably just needs one of those where the ball goes in off his backside and then they’ll start going in for him.
“You saw how good he was against Dundalk (in the Jim Malone Cup) and against Shels in pre-season. He didn’t score against Sligo, but he was up against two of the best centre-halves in the country and they couldn’t wait to get away from him.”
He’s only been in the job for a couple of months, but Mulvenna says he’s enjoying the challenge and he feels that he’s found the perfect club to develop his coaching skills further.
“It’s been really, really good. I wanted to take a leap into senior football and I’ve found the right people to learn from in Kevin and Dáire (Doyle).”
Having had two spells as a player with Drogheda prior to hanging up his boots, Dundalk-based Mulvenna is well aware of what the build-up to the derby will be like, but he insists the craic with Lilywhites fans is good-natured.
“I have done it as a player and I got more stick than I do as a coach,” he said.
“There’s a lot of banter, but I like that side of things. Every coach loves that side of things and it builds up the whole week leading into the game and it gets you excited. Hopefully it will end in a Drogheda win!”