Kierans welcomes win

Dundalk recorded their first win in three months on Friday night with a comfortable 4-0 win against Malahide United at Gannon Park. Interim manager Darius Kierans was pleased with what is his first win since he took over. However, he was frustrated with some mistakes made by his young Lilywhites.

"Yeah, pretty pleased. We made hard work of it at times ourselves. It wasn't Malahide that troubled us, it was more us troubling ourselves really. We gave the ball away stupidly in the first half and should have created more. That said, we did cause them an awful lot of problems. Michael Rafter was excellent as was Mark Griffin, Gay Shanahan and Lorcan Shannon were very sharp. Overall, I am pleased."

Kierans revealed he had the non-league outfit watched a few times and had a game plan of how they would set up. He also paid tribute to the Malahide United club as a whole.

"It was always going to be like that. We watched their game last week, we have had them watched a couple of times. We set up a certain way and we wanted to play a certain way. We went out to penetrate the space between their back four and their midfield. Their defence sat very deep. I thought Michael (Rafter) exploited that space very well.

"They were always going to have a go. Vinny (Perth) and Alan (Murphy) have done a great job. They are definitely a club on the up, they were well organised and had a go but the boys wouldn't have them any other way."

One of the standout performers on the night was young Lorcan Shannon, who is on loan from Shamrock Rovers and his boss was full of praise for the youngster but also hailed the rest of his team for getting the job done.

"Lorcan's done well. He's only young and he's got a lot to learn but he knows that and he wants to learn. He's a good kid and games like tonight will only improve him. There are parts of his game that he has to improve on as do a lot of the others. Bob McKenna and William Woods came on and did very well. Bob's movement is excellent and himself and William seemed to play well together. There's a lot of young players here now but hopefully we can build on this performance and bring it into the league."

In transfer news, Dundalk had hoped to conclude a deal for goalkeeper Paul Murphy however complications have prevented it from happening and he is on the look out for another goalkeeper.

"Paul was an amateur and we spoke to the FAI and we thought that we could have signed him as an amateur player but because he has come from Northern Ireland there is a bit of a problem now, it's disappointing to lose Paul. He's a cracking lad, he would have been a great asset to the club but unfortunately we have to look elsewhere."

Stephen Maher's signing is definite and former Drogheda United boss, Kierans, is hopeful of bringing in more, possibly from the UK, but spoke of the difficulty that he has in attracting players at this late stage.

"No but we're still looking. There's nothing definite at the minute and it has to be right for the club. We aren't going to be rushed into anything. We're looking at players in England. There's a lot of players in England waiting until the deadline over there next week. We've only 10 weeks left here, it's difficult to get players to come back over here from England for 10 weeks. It's difficult but we are looking but it has to be right for ourselves."

Dundalk advance to the quarter-finals for the second year in a row and the 33 year-old is pleased with how his side dealt with the challenge of the tie and hopes that they can build on the performance in the league, starting with the Louth derby next weekend.

"It's great. I think ours was the most convincing result across all the games tonight. Some teams seem to have difficulty with non-league sides but we did well with them tonight. They're all difficult games and we're delighted, very pleased with the boys and hopefully it'll give us a good boost going into the Louth derby next weekend."