Relieved Gill Thrilled with win

“It would have been a travesty had we conceded that penalty at the end with the way that we played; our efforts tonight deserved three points.” - Gill

Dundalk maintained their three point lead at the top of the First Division table on Friday night with an impressive win away to Limerick 37. Goals from David Crawley and Jamie Duffy secured the victory and, giving his thoughts on another fine result, manager John Gill was pleased with the performance, and relieved that an injury-time penalty didn’t cost his side two points that he felt they were full value for.

Speaking to Dundalk's Official website, www.dundalkfc.com afterwards, Gill said: “We should have been out of sight. In the first-half, we were excellent, and probably should have come in at half-time more than one goal up. It went 2-0 then, but we gave away a sloppy goal - in fairness, Chris Bennion has put his hands up in the dressing-room for it. I actually thought for their penalty that we won the ball, but again, it shouldn’t have even come to that.

“In the last ten minutes, I don’t know if we tired, but our concentration levels definitely dipped. But in saying that, it’s a very hard place to come; we’ve come here and got another three points away from home, and it’s a great result. I thought we showed great commitment and heart, and I thought some of our pressing in the first-half, the way that we held it, and the tempo that we played at was excellent, and that’s what we’re looking for.

“They made a couple of changes at half-time and changed their system, and it took us a while to get to grips with that. But, at the end of the day, it’s three points, and that’s what matters. Again, you can pick over the bones about it. We’re actually very disappointed in there that we didn’t keep a clean-sheet, and that shows you the standards that the players have themselves.

“It would have been a travesty had we conceded that penalty at the end with the way that we played; our efforts tonight deserved three points. Maybe that’s the little bit of luck that you need. We still have areas that we need to work on, but again, it’s nice to come away from home and get another win. The players have been excellent in their application. There are areas that we know we need to improve on, and we’ll be working on that.

“At the end of the day, all you can do is keep beating the teams that come up in front of you. There is going to be a lot of teams that come down here and maybe not get anything. It’s a difficult place to adapt to, and it’s all about attitude when you come down here, and having the right mental approach. I remember coming down here last year when we were beaten 4-1, and I thought we were fragile mentally, but tonight we weren’t. We were strong tonight mentally, and I thought that’s what got us through, and what got us the win.

“If we had conceded the penalty there, we would have come in sick. It would have felt like a defeat; it would have been two points dropped. We’ve just got to keep beating what’s in front of us, and hopefully build up a momentum. We’ve gone eight competitive games unbeaten now - six wins and two draws - and that’s a great start. You can’t ask for any more than that, and I honestly think that we’ll get better.

“We’ve got great competition for places, as was shown tonight with Ben Whelehan and Paul Marney not getting a game. My job now is to manage expectation. We got off to a very, very similar start last year, and everybody was patting us on the back. We’ve got ourselves into a good position, but there is a very long way to go. I said at the start that if we could get eighteen points per round, I’d be very happy with that. We have seventeen now with two games to go, but it’s important now that we ram home our advantage, and try to finish this round of games unbeaten.”