8th April
It really is depressing. How could we lose this game to an inexperienced Shelbourne team at such a vital important stage of the season. All it needed was Jeremy Beadle to pop out behind the Will You Marry Me sign at one end of the ground and then we'd all laugh and get on with the real business of the relegation battle. How we still have the management that we had at the start of the season is beyond me. All week most Dundalk fans have been screaming out for David Martin but all we get for the first half is David Ward and some GAA player we plucked off the street . Finally Tommy persuades Jim to bring Martin on and within 5 minutes, FIVE minutes he scores. Is there a lesson there Jim ? Martin is now our top scorer despite being treated like excrement by the man that the papers call our canny manager with experience to get us out of trouble. Perhaps Jim is the new Syd James and could star in a new movie called Carry On Managing where he makes many more ridiculous decisions.
The fact that neither Martin nor Steve Williams ran onto the pitch at the start was like going one nil down in my opinion. Williams, obviously injured was replaced in goal by Stephen Henderson of the many arms who can make a simple catch look complicated. Dundalk went with a cunning ploy of throwing the lively but erratic Ward up front with Peter " I can't believe I'm getting paid for doing this " McGinnity. On the right Dundalk went with the pace of Jumbo Brennan and on the left we had Ray Campbell who had his worst game ever for Dundalk. In the centre of the park David Hoey played and has not popped the question to his girlfriend. That sign behind the goal was a joke, just like our first half performance. McNulty partnered Hoey in the middle of the park and like Campbell he put in a bitterly disappointing performance. At the back Reddish and Crawley were on the wings with Melvin and Brady in the centre. Anyone expecting Dundalk to continue from where they left off last Sunday were to be disappointed as Dundalk put in a terrible display, lacking in hope, pride and every other positive quality you might expect from a lowly team. Instead we let a raw Shels team expose our every defficiency and give their fledglings an easy welcome to the hurly burly of the National League. We had a couple of chances but the most you could hear around Oriel Park was the flick of the lighter for Jim's next fag. On 40 minutes the tireless Dessie Baker won a corner for Shels and the near post effort was headed into the net by David Byrne . Once again Dundalk had conceded the first goal. We haven't led a match since the 11th of February and once again we had to try and pull back the deficit . Half time came and went but nothing had changed and just into the second half an embarassing mess up in the Dundalk defence made it 2-0 to Shels.
Campbell had now moved to the right wing but his habit of losing possession which cost us a goal last week would cost us one this week. He lost the ball to Shels who hit a harmless ball across the box where Henderson would surely collect but no, he hesitated and Noel Melvin poked the ball away from him right across the box to Dessie Baker who shot into an open goal. For those of you who weren't there the goal was twenty times more ridiculous than it sounds. Finally the cobwebs on the zips of the Dundalk substitutes tracksuits were dusted off as David Martin and Paudie Gollogley replaced John Brennan and Peter McGinnity who didn't even score a point. It was the first run of note that either pair made all evening. Within five minutes Dundalk were thrown a lifeline when a hopeful ball into the box fell to the feet of David Martin who controlled and blasted it past Gough. Dundalk's best spell followed and we could have equalised when Reddish's goalbound volley was blocked on the line and the rebound scrambled away. Dundalk had many long throws and corners cleared and Reddish amazingly missed when he shot over on the volley from a great left wing cross. Hoey was busy throughout the match but ran out of steam and Dunne replaced him. Dundalk had also ran out of steam . They had given everything but for the last ten minutes Shels were all over us. Gollogley's great block stopped a certain goal while in injury time Sheridan shot wide of an open goal from a position where one of our players would have at least hit the post.
Fact is that we lost, just like last week we only started playing when we went two goals down and our revival could be more down to Shelbourne slacking up. We're going to hear the usual rubbish from our club for the next week that we played well in the second half and were unlucky not to get a draw but near misses don't get you any more points in the league table and once again we are looking for other results to keep us in check. What disappointed me tonight apart from our ridiculous team selection was that our most consistent players and probably our best players, McNulty, Campbell and Melvin were all at sea and it's players like those who you would expect to lift the younger players along. Brady also was poor while Reddish was unlucky because he put in some brilliant passes that some of our players were not alert to. It was a night that promised so much and delivered so little.
The journalists who selected David Martin as man of the match. I'd say that really hit home with McLaughlin. He can't leave him out next week, can he ?