I'd have taken this position - Gill

John Gill presided over his biggest ever win in management as Dundalk hit Athlone Town with a magnificent seven goal haul at Oriel Park last Thursday night, and afterwards, the boss hailed a wonderful team performance. And, though the league title is now firmly in the grasp of Shelbourne, Gill went on to state that he would have taken this position at the start of the season.

“I thought the whole team were magnificent tonight,” Gill admitted to dundalkfc.com. “I thought we had a lot of pace in the areas that we needed to have it, up front and out wide. I thought all over the park, we looked strong physically and our decision making was good. Again, you’ll get some of the detractors in Dundalk, our own supporters, saying that Athlone were rubbish and they were this and that.

“We can only beat what is put in front of us, we’ve done that, we’ve brought it to the last game of the season, and, hopefully, we can finish it off next week. We have to go down to Kildare, make sure we’re focussed and don’t worry about any other game. If we win in Kildare and we don’t win the league, then so be it

.

“What we’ve done is we’ve brought it to the last day of the season, and that’s what we wanted to do all along. At the start of the year, I said that it would go to the last game. People will be disappointed, saying that we should have had the league won tonight, but Shelbourne will be saying the same thing.

“It is nobody’s divine right to win anything - you’ve got to work hard for whatever you get in football. It has been a great season and credit to the players for that. It has been a topsy-turvy season, but we’ve been in the top two all year, and that takes some mental strength to do that, because we have had dips.

“We seem to take two steps forward and one back, but, in fairness, after the Wexford game, we had a chat and we did things maybe a little bit differently, and we have been magnificent since. Okay, last week was very disappointing, although I still feel we should have got something out of the game in the second-half.

“It’s still out of our hands, but I’m pleased for the fans that we could finish off with a very good victory at home. I thought we were at it tonight. Some people will say that Athlone were awful, but they had the best defensive record of the bottom half before the game. They also conceded only two goals in their previous six games.

“We can only beat what’s put in front of us. I thought the tempo and the intensity that we played with tonight and the couple of changes that we made to the team worked. Full credit to the players; they deserve all the credit because they’re the ones that do the work.

“We said that we wanted to get an early goal, and I feel that when we do that at home, we’re nearly unstoppable, because the crowd are tremendous. When we get an early goal, they get right behind us, and it’s an intimidating place to come. Athlone gave a couple of young players their debuts tonight and Oriel Park is an intimidating ground to get a debut when the place is swinging from the rafters.

“But, in saying that, we went about our work, and the most pleasing thing is that we didn’t stop. We kept going. It would have maybe been easy to stop after three, but we kept going. Goal difference might not come into it, but, if it does, we’re now well clear of Shels on it. Really, this win is like a four-point gain for us.

“We’ve turned that goal difference around, but we’ve still got a massive game next week. I’m quite sure that we’ll bring a massive crowd with us, and, hopefully, if the Gods are looking down on us, we’ll get a little bit of luck. I think if you had said to any manager in this league ‘would you take playing for the league title on the last day of the season?’, they would have taken your hand off, and I’m no different.”