Gill and Martin Delighted with first win

Having gone close last week as he crashed a header against the Shelbourne crossbar, striker Robbie Martin finally got off the mark for his new club, when he netted a double for Dundalk in their comfortable 3-0 home win over Monaghan United on Thursday night. And, the 25-year-old, who hadn’t scored in the league since last April, was clearly happy with a good night’s work.

“It’s a good start in our first home game,” a delighted Martin told extratime.ie. “I know the lads were saying Monaghan were a bit of a bogey team up here, but I think the best thing was that we had six or seven lads who didn’t know anything about that. I think we played very well and did what we had to do, and we could have maybe had five or six, to be honest. I’m delighted to get two goals myself, and, hopefully, I’ll get a lot more this season. I thought last week, we showed a lot of character, and I thought tonight that we showed a lot of professionalism, so we’re delighted.”

Martin’s opener came after he ran down a Brendan Kennedy clearance, with the ball rebounding fortuitously into the unguarded net. “I didn’t really know much about it,” Martin admitted. “I just ran at the ‘keeper. The lads said he hasn’t got the best of kick-outs and he kind of smacks it all over the place. I just went in to see where it would go, but I didn’t know much about it - I felt it for the next ten minutes, mind you! I was delighted with it, though, and the second goal then was nice to finish it off. We were strong, I thought. You can see the bench tonight - there’s a lot of lads who aren’t playing, who are well able to be playing.”

Dundalk manager John Gill admitted his delight at the home performance. “I’m very happy with the performance,” Gill told extratime.ie.

“I thought we were excellent; very professional. We went about our work at the right tempo, we created numerous chances, and I thought we were full value for our win. “We tell the front players to chase everything down. I thought Robbie Martin was excellent. For a player who people kind of half doubted when he came here, you saw his quality there tonight - it was different gravy, I thought. He could have had a hat trick - I thought he deserved one. I actually thought we should have had a couple more goals, to be honest, with the chances that we had. I thought we were excellent."

“The second goal was a great goal too. I thought Cassidy was immense again tonight as well - the whole lot of them were. I said to them down there that you’re only as good as your bench. You only have to look at what we had on the bench tonight, and who wasn’t even stripped. I keep saying it, in football, if you do the simple things well, individually and collectively, usually football is good to you, and that’s what we done tonight. I thought we looked penetrative all night."

“It’s very, very pleasing all-round, but in saying that, it’s only one win - I’m not going to get carried away with it. I wouldn’t have got carried away if we had lost either. It’s one win, we’re top of the table, albeit for a night. We’ve got to make this place like a fortress. It’s a good start for us, and we’re moving in the right direction. I keep saying it, I think this is a very fit bunch of players. They mightn’t be technically as good as some of the players we’ve had here in the last two years, but they’re very honest, they work their socks off, and I think when you do that and you have good organisation, it gives you a great stepping stone. Getting another clean-sheet tonight is also very pleasing.”