Ciaran Kilduff: We are still in with a chance

Dundalk striker Ciaran Kilduff believes that the Lilywhites are still in with a great chance of reaching the last 32 of the Europa League despite Thursday night’s 1-0 loss to AZ Alkmaar in Tallaght.

“We have already beaten Maccabi here, so why can’t we do that again,” the forward told extratime.ie.

“We had a nightmare opening 15 minutes tonight and we paid the price for it in the end but we’ll have to dust ourselves off because we’re not out of this group yet. If we go to Israel and win, which we’re capable of doing, it should be enough to get us through.

“It doesn’t really matter what anyone else does because we know that we have to go and win (in Israel) and nothing else will do. How do we go about that we’ll just have to see. At the end of the day, we have to go to Israel and win and I suppose if you had of offered us that at the start of the campaign we would have taken it.”

The manner of the defeat is something that irks Kilduff personally especially having had chances himself to put parity on the scoreboard.

“It’s a disappointing one and I think the nature of it (the defeat) is going to frustrate us even more. They are a good team don’t get me wrong but I think that we went toe-to-toe with them tonight.

“I think we started very poorly but I think that about 20 minutes before half-time we started to get free-kicks and corners in dangerous areas and started to create a few chances. A few half-chances fell to me that I probably could have done better with.

“Half-time probably disrupted everything and in the second-half they got on top again and to be fair for the majority of the half we failed to create much in the final third. We’ll all have to take responsibility for that. It’s stacked against us now but we’ve done it so many times in the past that you wouldn’t bet against us because that’s the type of season we’ve had,” he added.

When asked if the earlier Group D result, which saw Zenit defeat Maccabi 2-0, had any impact on their approach to the game, Kilduff insisted that it bared no relevance on their set-up despite admitting that the result had filtered into the dressing room prior to kick-off in Dublin.

“We knew the result but it didn’t change anything. We wanted to win tonight and that’s always the way we always play but when you give away an early goal like we did it’s hard to do that.”

One reason for the Lilywhites’ poor start may have been their 18-day lay-off since last fielding in a competitive game. Yet again however the Dundalk number 16 refuted the claims instead saying that his team mates were eager to get back out onto the pitch after their defeat to Cork in the cup final.

“It’s not really that because I think after the cup final we all couldn’t wait for this game. It was the manner of the start which let us down in the end tonight and we never recovered and we made it so hard for ourselves as a result.

“When we had so many games we were all giving out so tonight we have no excuses. We just didn’t start well enough, they did, and we pay the price. We’re all just looking forward to Maccabi now.”

Dundalk skipper Stephen O’Donnell hobbled out of proceedings after 41 minutes tonight while Chris Shields missed out all together through illness. Kilduff is hopeful that both will be fit for the game in Tel-Aviv in two-weeks’ time.

“I think Chris Shields is on the road to recovery. Stephen probably has to get assessed during the week. They’re two very important players for us so hopefully both of them make a full recovery and we go over to Tel-Aviv with a full complement of players and ready to do a job.”