Media officer Gavin McLaughlin sat down with Lilywhites midfielder Paul Doyle ahead of Friday night’s SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division clash with high-flying Bohemians at Oriel Park.

GMCL: Paul, it’s been another busy week at the club with Noel King starting on Monday. From a player’s point of view, what’s it like when a new manager comes into the building?
PD: It’s been a good week. As you said, everybody has a kind of a point to prove and it’s a fresh, clean slate for everyone. Training’s been quite good. Obviously when a new manager comes through the door, everyone’s trying to show what they’re about.

GMCL: Noel said that he wasn’t going to change too much this week. Has that been the case? Has it been a case of as you were almost?
PD: Yeah, it kind of has been. He’s added a few little bits at meetings and that sort of thing and I’m sure as time goes on he’ll kind of stamp his piece on it. We have a lot of lads that are new to the League of Ireland that he’d probably not be overly familiar with so I suppose it’s a week for him to get to grips with everybody and see what we have.

GMCL: Looking back at last week’s 1-1 draw in Sligo, it was another good display, especially in the second half, and if you look at games in isolation, and not the league table, you could argue we haven’t been playing too badly…
PD: Yeah, I think the performances over the last couple of weeks have been quite good. We obviously played Bohs recently and I actually thought we were quite good in that game but probably didn’t capitalise when we were on top and we came away with nothing. I thought we were good against Pat’s after that and again, bar the first 15 minutes in Sligo, we were the better side. We got to grips with the game and looked like the team that was going to win it as it went on. We deserved more than a point but it gave us a good kind of springboard and a good base to come into this week. It’s just about turning those draws into victories.

GMCL: One of the most important things that the fans will be looking at is the morale of the squad. After going one down last week, you could easily have seen heads drop but there seems to be a good spirit, despite where we are in the table.
PD: Yeah, there definitely is. We’ve got a good group and, above anything else, we have good quality. The first thing you look at when you’re in the position we’re in is whether we have the quality in the dressing room to get out of it – and we do. We have enough to be in a much higher position so it’s about trying to extract everything out of the bodies that we have to propel ourselves up the table.

15 April 2024; James Clarke of Bohemians in action against Paul Doyle during the SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division match at Dalymount Park. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

On top of that, we’ve got some very experienced players that have been around the league, that have won stuff and played in Europe so, from that point of view,  the character is definitely there as well. I think those players have been important to us in the last few weeks. They’ve been there for the younger players to lean on and to drag them through and they will be massive going forward.

GMCL: Does the current situation have you thinking a lot more than usual? It must go through your head at times, even more so than if we were riding high and winning games?
PD: I don’t know. That might be the case for others but for me it doesn’t because regardless of where you are in the table, you’re going out to win a game. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game and not went out to win it, regardless of what position that you’re in. I go back to the quality in the dressing room. We have enough to go anywhere, whether it’s home or away, against any side, and win games. I think it’d be a different story if you were looking around the dressing room and thinking quality wise we’re a mile off it. We’re not going into games and thinking ‘we need to batten down the hatches here and hopefully we can get away with something’. That’s not the case so it’s definitely not something that’s on on my mind.

GMCL: I know it’s stating the obvious, but if there are any players with doubts and low confidence then a win is exactly what’s needed to change that…
PD: Of course. There is nothing in football like a win to galvanise a group of players and the fans and give players that extra bit of confidence and belief. I remember back to last year when we drew and lost our first two games of season and in the third game we 5-0 against St Pat’s and you could see a shift in belief after that. That’s what a win does to you so, hopefully, we can get that going tomorrow night and get that kind of feeling again because I really believe we are a good side and we can win a lot of games.

GMCL: Finally, we played Bohemians less than two weeks ago but there’s a feeling that their starting XI on Friday night could be vastly different from the team that they picked in Dalymount…
PD: Yeah, I’d imagine there’ll be a few changes. They’ve obviously won three on the bounce now and they probably have had a couple of good performances from players that didn’t actually play against us, or players that came on against us, but we’re prepared for whatever way they go and we have a good handle of  how they’ll play, regardless of what personnel they have on the pitch.