Stephen O’Donnell cut a very frustrated figure after Dundalk’s six-game unbeaten run came to an end at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium on Monday night.
Jordan McEneff’s first-half strike put the hosts in the driving seat at the interval and further goals after the break from Brandon Kavanagh and Michael Duffy condemned Dundalk, who lost captain Darragh Leahy to a first-half injury, to their first defeat since April.
Speaking to the media afterwards, O’Donnell said that a lack of physicality, combined with the concession of some cheap goals, caused Dundalk massive problems in the Maiden City.
On the performance…
“It’s disappointing. We gave up cheap goals at poor moments and physically we were poor in relation to our duels and competing. If you don’t do that, then more often than not you won’t come out on the right side of the result. We had a foothold in the game coming up to half time but early in the second half, we let the game drift away from us again. We went for it at 2-0 down, threw a bit of caution to the wind and had two good opportunities but we didn’t take them and that’s the bottom line. If we did, it might have had a different ending but from a bigger picture, and from a competing aspect and a physicality aspect, we were well off it and that is disappointing.”
On his team selection…
“We made need to keep bodies fresh because we play again on Friday against Bohemians. Patrick Hoban hasn’t been back for too long and he played almost 100 minutes against Cork City on Friday night so we need to be clever. We’ve seen what has happened to players getting injured this season so we can’t be taking risks when we play these three games in seven days. Rayhaan Tulloch came off on Friday against Cork and it was too quick of a turnaround for him to make it tonight so we’ll see how he is for Friday.”
On Darragh Leahy’s injury…
“He got a bad impact early on. It was a contact injury and there is nothing we can do about that. Hopefully, it’s not too bad. We’ll have a better idea of things in the next 24 to 48 hours.”
On Friday’s game with Bohemians…
“Before tonight, we won our last four so it won’t be too hard to pick them up. Yes, it was a bad defeat this evening but we have a quick turnaround and Bohs is a game where we’ll be looking forward to rectifying it. There’s no time to dwell on it.”
