Whelehan ready for Battle
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Since arriving at Oriel Park for duty in January of last year, central defender Ben Whelehan has appeared in just 12 of Dundalk's 42 league matches. Interestingly, the Lilywhites have kept eight clean-sheets in those games. Two nasty injuries has been behind his lack of action, however, now, recovered from an ankle knock sustained in the opening day draw at Shelbourne, Whelehan is fighting fit and aiming to dislodge either Aidan Lynch or Ian Ryan from the starting XI. "The ankle injury is grand, it's healed completely, Whelehan revealed this week. There's been no problems; I was told six weeks, and I'm back in four, so I'm ready to go. I'm just waiting to be picked for the team now, but that's up to John".
The 28-year-old incidentally suffered both injuries against Shels, and, as a result, has made just one competitive appearance since last May. However, despite his lengthy absences, Whelehan feels it's a case of being unlucky rather than injury prone. "No, I definitely don't think I'm injury prone! he states. That's football, you get injured. If there wasn't a divot in the pitch, I wouldn't have ran into it, and you see knee injuries happening all over the league."
Last year, Dundalk suffered for long periods in defence as injuries to Lynch and Whelehan saw a number of players line-out in their less preferred positions to cover at centre-half. However, now, it's a totally different headache for manager John Gill as he has to pick between Whelehan, Lynch and Ryan for the two available slots. "I don't want to sit on the bench, but I can't complain, Whelehan admits. The lads are doing quite well at the back. If they were doing badly and I was sitting on the bench, then I'd have something to say. The lads are doing well, but I'm looking forward to getting back in."
Whelehan has been watching from the sidelines since the first day of the campaign, and has seen his team-mates accumulate thirteen points from the fifteen on offer since then. However, he feels at this point that there is still room for improvement from the squad. "It's been okay so far, Ben assesses. We got a good win against Waterford; it was a bit of a scrappy game. We were shocking against Fingal, and I thought against Wexford, we played in patches, but overall, we sneaked a win when maybe we shouldn't have. We didn't play up to our potential, but we came back then against Waterford, and hopefully now, we can push on against Limerick. It's a big, big game, but I don't see why we can't get a result down there."
"You don't want to peak too early, but there are teams in the league that you should be beating. You've just got to keep taking one game at a time, that's the old cliche, and just win your games. Overall, I'm happy with the start. We could have been playing a little bit better, and we could have picked up a couple of more points, but we're top of the league, so, hopefully, we can stay there."
