Hatswell hails Lilywhite heroes
Credit:
Possibly the most unforeseen result of the season took place at Oriel
Park on Monday evening when Dundalk hammered champions elect Shamrock
Rovers 5-1. Extratime.ie caught up with a delighted though exhausted Lilywhites
Assistant Manager and left back Wayne Hatswell to try to work out
where the performance had come from.
Hatswell beamed “Obviously it’s a great result for us, a week’s a long time in football isn’t it? We had the result against Bray where we couldn’t as a unit have been any lower. After that game we took some stick and we had to have a good look at ourselves. We’ve got a lot more organised in training and the lads have worked really hard and you get your just rewards when you’re organised. These things in my hand make a big difference so thanks to the people who do that for us (produce the match coverage cd’s), we’ve gone back to basics and try to start again really and its paid dividends for us.”
Dundalk surprise 5-1 win over Shamrock Rovers (Image by George Kelly)
The seeds of the back to back victories against Drogheda and Rovers
may have been planted in the pain of a home defeat and terrible
performance against the league basement team Bray. Wayne dwelled
briefly on the pain that game had caused “It hurt me as a player and
part of the management and I know damn well it hurt the gaffer (Ian
Foster) so I’d like to think the rest of the players hurt. We’ve had a
chat since then, we’ve spent a lot of time on the training field not
running players and getting them fit, it was the completely opposite
really, we kind of wanted to look after them a little bit. We walked
through things a lot and tried to nail down a lot of stuff and we
seemed to be a lot more organised as a team and as units across the
pitch. Maybe the youngsters need to know their jobs more than we
anticipated.”
Wayne has made comments before this season about the home playing surface but felt that on Monday it suited the Co Louth boys perfectly “The elements worked in our favour tonight, it actually finally rained before kick-off which was ideal for us so the pitch was brilliant. We could move the ball, we played on the front foot and caused them problems all night. It was nice to see a few goals go in and especially for Tippy (Matthew Tipton) because he’s a real handful for us at the moment and long may that continue.”
Daniel Kearns turned in a man of the match performance which isn’t bad when one of your teammates has scored a hat trick, Wayne paid tribute to the newly capped U21 international youngster “Danny’s got talent, hopefully now he’s got through the bad time, he’s had a bit of a tough baptism really since he first come here. He’s had 4 or 5 games now and he’s getting his fitness better and he knows where he needs to play within the team and he’s doing that well. We’ve got the youth and endeavour with players like him and the Tom Millers they are the youngsters that we need to give us the legs to keep the old lads going like myself. If they keep playing like that I’ll gladly play every week.”
From his left back spot Wayne had a hand in two of the goals and was happy to help the cause “That was nice, but every time we went forward we looked like scoring, we caused them a threat in the air. We’ve got Garry Breen back now which means another big body in the box which drags somebody out and it’s paying dividends for us at both ends.”
Rovers did manage to get a consolation goal and it will no doubt be a big hit on Youtube or the “what happens next”? slot on A Question of Sport where a routine backpass was missed by Peter Cherrie to allow Gary Twigg a clear run on goal. Hatswell was quick to defend the Scottish net minder by drawing attention to the fine saves he produced in the second half notably from Chambers and Stewart “We’re disappointed that we didn’t keep a clean sheet and Pete has obviously made an error of judgement but when he does anything like that he makes up for it at other times. He made some unbelievable saves there tonight, two of them right out of the top drawer, he’ll always make amends no matter what and he’s kept us in games all season.”
Matthew Tipton notched a hat trick and was a constant threat to the Rovers backline, as a defender Wayne appreciates just how difficult an opponent Tipton can be “We’ve got Tippy who’s a threat from most things that we do. He pins you, he never stands still which is always good for a striker we try and teach the young lads that. If you’ve got half of what he’s got you’ll do alright. He’s experienced as well so he knows when to pin defenders and when to get away and leave spaces for the likes of Faz (Fahrudin Kudozovic), he leaves himself in plenty of space and that’s what good strikers do and he caused plenty of damage tonight.”
Neale Fenn made a rare start for the Hoops and it looked as if it had a motivating effect on the Dundalk boys which well and truly backfired on Rovers and resulted in Fenn being withdrawn early after an abject performance. We asked if Dundalk were missing a certain striker who is now enjoying his “retirement” in the number 11 shirt at Tallaght but possibly due to back ground noise Wayne seemed to miss our question “Who?” was his response.
So the Dundalk boys can bask in the glow of a fine performance against a team who looked anything like potential champions and certainly didn’t look like they had just been on a 17 match unbeaten run. Then again maybe we should have seen it coming as that is the third win the Lilywhites have recorded over Shamrock Rovers this season. Little wonder the Dundalk fans were singing “Can we play you every week?”
Hatswell beamed “Obviously it’s a great result for us, a week’s a long time in football isn’t it? We had the result against Bray where we couldn’t as a unit have been any lower. After that game we took some stick and we had to have a good look at ourselves. We’ve got a lot more organised in training and the lads have worked really hard and you get your just rewards when you’re organised. These things in my hand make a big difference so thanks to the people who do that for us (produce the match coverage cd’s), we’ve gone back to basics and try to start again really and its paid dividends for us.”
Wayne has made comments before this season about the home playing surface but felt that on Monday it suited the Co Louth boys perfectly “The elements worked in our favour tonight, it actually finally rained before kick-off which was ideal for us so the pitch was brilliant. We could move the ball, we played on the front foot and caused them problems all night. It was nice to see a few goals go in and especially for Tippy (Matthew Tipton) because he’s a real handful for us at the moment and long may that continue.”
Daniel Kearns turned in a man of the match performance which isn’t bad when one of your teammates has scored a hat trick, Wayne paid tribute to the newly capped U21 international youngster “Danny’s got talent, hopefully now he’s got through the bad time, he’s had a bit of a tough baptism really since he first come here. He’s had 4 or 5 games now and he’s getting his fitness better and he knows where he needs to play within the team and he’s doing that well. We’ve got the youth and endeavour with players like him and the Tom Millers they are the youngsters that we need to give us the legs to keep the old lads going like myself. If they keep playing like that I’ll gladly play every week.”
From his left back spot Wayne had a hand in two of the goals and was happy to help the cause “That was nice, but every time we went forward we looked like scoring, we caused them a threat in the air. We’ve got Garry Breen back now which means another big body in the box which drags somebody out and it’s paying dividends for us at both ends.”
Rovers did manage to get a consolation goal and it will no doubt be a big hit on Youtube or the “what happens next”? slot on A Question of Sport where a routine backpass was missed by Peter Cherrie to allow Gary Twigg a clear run on goal. Hatswell was quick to defend the Scottish net minder by drawing attention to the fine saves he produced in the second half notably from Chambers and Stewart “We’re disappointed that we didn’t keep a clean sheet and Pete has obviously made an error of judgement but when he does anything like that he makes up for it at other times. He made some unbelievable saves there tonight, two of them right out of the top drawer, he’ll always make amends no matter what and he’s kept us in games all season.”
Matthew Tipton notched a hat trick and was a constant threat to the Rovers backline, as a defender Wayne appreciates just how difficult an opponent Tipton can be “We’ve got Tippy who’s a threat from most things that we do. He pins you, he never stands still which is always good for a striker we try and teach the young lads that. If you’ve got half of what he’s got you’ll do alright. He’s experienced as well so he knows when to pin defenders and when to get away and leave spaces for the likes of Faz (Fahrudin Kudozovic), he leaves himself in plenty of space and that’s what good strikers do and he caused plenty of damage tonight.”
Neale Fenn made a rare start for the Hoops and it looked as if it had a motivating effect on the Dundalk boys which well and truly backfired on Rovers and resulted in Fenn being withdrawn early after an abject performance. We asked if Dundalk were missing a certain striker who is now enjoying his “retirement” in the number 11 shirt at Tallaght but possibly due to back ground noise Wayne seemed to miss our question “Who?” was his response.
So the Dundalk boys can bask in the glow of a fine performance against a team who looked anything like potential champions and certainly didn’t look like they had just been on a 17 match unbeaten run. Then again maybe we should have seen it coming as that is the third win the Lilywhites have recorded over Shamrock Rovers this season. Little wonder the Dundalk fans were singing “Can we play you every week?”
