Gill Thrilled with ‘Excellent Workout’

Despite seeing his new-look side lose out in a penalty shoot-out, Dundalk manager John Gill was delighted with his team’s first pre-season workout of 2008, as they dominated for long spells against the Champions of Ireland, Drogheda United. With nine training sessions under their belt going into the game, the Lilywhites arrived in superb health, and looked a step ahead of their full-time rivals throughout the evening.

With that leading to Gill being full of praise for his troops afterwards. Speaking to extratime.ie, Gill said: “We got a lot out of the game. In fairness, they’re a good side - that would be eight of their starting eleven, I’d imagine. They actually played us into a decent shape, which is what we were looking for, a defensive shape; they actually helped us work on that tonight. I thought we coped very, very well. I already said before the game, I was very happy with the fitness levels, and I thought you saw that there tonight. I thought we were excellent, against a full-time team, I thought we were very, very good fitness and conditional wise.

“I’m very, very happy with the attitude and the hunger that they’ve shown, and it was an excellent workout for us. I have to say, I thought we were comfortable tonight. I felt we were very comfortable, defensively. Trevor (Vaughan) could have scored in the first-half and Tiarnàn (Mulvenna) had a chance in the second-half; I thought overall, chances wise, we shaded it, but you can’t take too much out of it. It’s a workout for them, they were trying a few new players out as well - they had (Joe) Kendrick and (Adam) Hughes making their debuts tonight, along with the ‘keeper.

“I think that you can see that the players we brought in from the Premier Division have that little bit of class. They pose people problems, but it’s their work-rate as well. I said to them down below, to be successful, you’ve got to work hard first. The only time that success comes before work is in the dictionary. If you don’t work hard, you’re never going to be successful, and by God did they work hard tonight. We had a thing on the board down there - attitude + work-rate = performances, and I think we got that tonight.

“I know some people in the club were maybe doubting signings that I made. Anybody that doubted that the Rovers boys were going to put it in got their answer tonight. They can call us the ‘Lilyhoops’, they can call us what they want, once we perform like that. And I think they showed tonight that they’re here to do a job.”