Senior stars must Mount’ an offensive

JOHN MOUNTNEY says it's time for Dundalk's senior players to step up and guide the younger players through this tricky spell.

It's just over four years since the Lilywhites last raised the Premier Division trophy, yet they are stuck at the bottom of the table with no wins from their opening 10 games.

Monday's 1-0 reversal away to Bohemians was their sixth defeat of the campaign — and their second game in the postStephen O'Donnell era.

Mountney (pictured) knows they need to urgently get back on track, but that it's easier said than done.

The squad is packed with youngsters taking their first steps in senior football, which makes the roles of their veteran players all the more crucial.

Medals

Between Mountney, Daryl Horgan, Andy Boyle and Robbie Benson, there are 15 Premier Division winners' medals and countless memorable European nights.

Mountney said: “It was a tough week for all of us, the senior players especially who had played with Stephen and under him.

“But like that, we have to take more responsibility. Of course we look back and reflect on our results to date and think, what more could we have done to have stopped that?

“Now we have to get around the younger lads and try to influence them, because with a lot of the group we have, it's their first real taste of senior football, there is no inbetween with our squad.

“It's the experienced ones and the younger ones. So look, they need to be shown a way of going about things.

“There is a big responsibility on us senior lads and that's something that we have to do as well.”

Mountney believes that things will only get better at Dundalk as the younger players gain more first-team exposure.

Guide

"Of course, everything in life is about experience,” he said. “It's easy for somebody who has gone through something or who has experience to tell someone else about it. But realistically you have to go through it yourself.

“All you can do is guide the younger lads, because there is talent there, there are good lads there and that's all you can do, guide them. “Hopefully for us as a club we'll start to pick up a couple of wins and get up that board a bit."