Stephen Kenny was honest in his appraisal of his Dundalk side last night as they failed to break down a stubborn and hard working Bray Wanderers. The Dundalk manager was disappointed that possession did not lead to points in the opening league game o
Stephen Kenny was honest in his appraisal of his Dundalk side last night as they failed to break down a stubborn and hard working Bray Wanderers. The Dundalk manager was disappointed that possession did not lead to points in the opening league game of the season at Oriel Park.
“We are disappointed not to win the game, with the amount of possession we had we didn’t create enough chances. Robbie Benson probably had four chances on the night but ultimately we didn’t do enough with the possession that we had. We should have had more creativity in our play than we had tonight”
"Bray did a good job marshalling tonight, they sat deep, they filled in the gaps and in terms of midfield they got men behind the ball and tried to hit us on the break. We should be well used to that now over the years. I think they did a good job doing it but from our point of view we can’t be happy really overall we can do more than we did.”
In the first half a fantastic team build up play nearly paid dividends when Robbie Benson’s shot was just tipped over the bar by Aaron Dillon of Bray Wanderers. In a half which Dundalk had six corners and six shots on target it was frustrating to watch for the Dundalk stalwart.
“It would have been goal of the season, there was about fifteen passes and then Dean Jarvis crossed it for Robbie, its was a great chance. Robbie had a good few chances tonight but to be fair to him he has been in bed with the flu and he got up and played but its just one of those things he didn’t take his chances tonight.”
“Overall a disappointing aspect is that he looked like the only one that looked like scoring we just didn’t create enough”
With the team ravaged by the flu, Kenny had to utilise his squad and players had to adapt to unfamiliar positions.
“We are missing two centre backs Brian Gartland and Sean Hoare, it wasn’t ideal, we had three left footers in the back four. That wasn’t the problem, we defended well in that regard, we kept a clean sheet ultimately. We needed to unlock the door, those games are always tight like that and we need to find a way of winning and we didn’t quite find it today”
With eyes firmly fixed on next Friday against Shamrock Rovers, the Dundalk manager is now focused on getting onto a winning mark.
“We have three difficult games, thats the nature thirty six games, we are disappointed tonight but it can change quickly, there is nine points to be won next week and thats the nature of it, we have to dust ourselves down and go again. People will be disappointed, our creative players didn’t play as well they would have tonight. Three games next week is a chance to address it.”
