Kierans Lilywhites ready for playoff challenge

Dundalk brought the curtain down on their regular Airtricity League season on Friday night with a refreshing 2-1 victory over Bray Wanderers at Oriel Park. Speaking after their first league victory in 19 outings, interim manager Darius Kierans was full of praise for his side and couldn't fault them all over the park.

"It was a great performance but I thought we made hard work of it in the end. We probably could have had the game over at half-time with the amount of chances we had. Michael Rafter had a tonne of chances but I thought some of the young players were excellent. We linked up well in places and Rafter and Lorcan Shannon were great together."

Kierans, who oversaw his first league victory in charge of the Lilywhites on Friday night, admitted some of the players may have forced their way into his thoughts for this week's playoff and is hopeful of having a full squad available to him but admitted Derek Foran is a doubt.

"Yeah, there is a lot of positives from tonight and I thought an awful lot of the young lads done really well. We haven't had a full team available to us in around 6-8 weeks. It's a good time of year, the players enjoy it and hopefully we'll have everyone back fit and ready to go for Tuesday. Derek Foran is the main doubt, he'd be rated 60/40 so we'll look at him but everything else is pleasing."

Barry Conlon scored his first goal for the club, which ended up being the winner, but his manager was more impressed with the effort of the team and in particular the urgency shown despite the nature of the game.

"Barry's an experienced player and he's done well. He's taken his goal well but I thought young Mark Leavy came in and done very well. William Woods also came on and did well. Michael Rafter was excellent for the hour he played.

"Lorcan Shannon we know what he can do and was good tonight too but we won't get carried away with it and Tuesday night it going to be a totally different game so we'll work hard like we have the last couple of weeks and the most pleasing thing about the performance was the urgency we showed, the composure and hopefully we can take that into the playoffs."

Now all attention switches to this week's two-legged playoff with Waterford United and the former Drogheda United boss feels his side will be ready but rued the situations his side have fell into in the past month.

"I'm pleased with the way the month has gone leading into the playoffs. Probably the week before and the week of the Cup semi-final was a total disaster but we were down a lot of bodies. I thought we could have won against Bohemians and down in Cork we had a few out but I am delighted that we won tonight, ending the season on a high and it gives everyone a lift going into the playoffs."