The Commentary Box: Seeds for a disappointing season were sown in January

Dundalk's outside hopes of a place in Europe next season crashed over the cliff edge and ended last Friday night when Shelbourne deservingly beat them by 1-0 at Tolka Park.

Will Jarvis's goal on four minutes was all it took for the Dubliners to put Stephen O'Donnell's side to the sword. The league table never lies and the result ensures Dundalk can not finish in 4th place, which even at that never ensured Dundalk would get a place in Europe.

The post mortem into what has been a very disappointing season must surely have begun in the halls of power at Oriel. The seeds were sown in the pre-season when the club began recruiting players for the new season last January.

Many clubs had made the bulk of their signings by Christmas. But for Dundalk that was not the case.

News of signings came in mid January right up to the deadline. They came mostly from the UK. Dundalk made five in total and three more on loan signings as the deadline for loanees also closed. Dundalk got their recruitment policy badly wrong. Yes, some of the new signings were very good. Others just simply did not fit the bill. And this was to be proven as the season went on.

I brought up the issue early into the season with Stephen O'Donnell. But he would not accept any criticism. He was happy with the signings and took full responsibility for the club making them. He told me they were his signings.

But there were others in the club who were also involved in the recruitment process. Brian Gartland was among those who at least played some part in bringing the new signings to the club. The Dundalk board must also bear responsibility as they are the ones that signed them. The owners had the final say.

The club also lost a very talented young centre half to Drogheda United who later sold him to Norwich City. This should never have been allowed to happen. I'm sure Drogheda stand to make some good money from the follow ons if Emmanuel Adeboyega is successful.

But it's simply too easy to just point at the players that were brought into the club for reasons that the season ended in failure.

Stephen O'Donnell had to put up with a litany of injuries among his players. I do not know how many times a player was fine at the end of a game, but during the week news would emerge they had picked up an injury.

It summed it all up when Robbie Benson played as a full back against Shelbourne and the previous week against Drogheda United while his natural position was midfield.

The same can be said of Greg Sloggett playing at centre half for the next two games, while he normally plays in centre midfield.

The lowest point of the season came when Dundalk were knocked out of the cup by First Division Galway by 4-0. They were three down in the first 25 minutes. But the real fact was that they were simply terrible. They never put up a fight and ended up losing the game by another goal.

The defence has been dreadful the entire season. In 33 games played in the league this season they went behind in 22 of them.

Over 33 games they have won 14, drawn seven, lost 12. They scored 50 goals and conceded 43. Their away record has been simply abysmal. They have won only 4 times.

And in Dublin they won only once against relegated UCD. They play them on the last day of the season. Thus they may be able to make it two wins in the capital.

The defence conceded 43 goals in 33 games and scored 50. But it was not only the defence where Dundalk had problems.

In midfield too, they lost many of their games. Last Friday was a case in point. For long spells of the game there was a considerable distance between defence and midfield on numerous occasions.

But since Stephen O'Donnell took over he has now been in charge of Dundalk playing in Dublin 19 times in the past two seasons. Dundalk have won just twice. The wins were over Bohemians last season and as mentioned against UCD earlier this season.

This should simply not be happening. To add to this, the failure to name the same team regularly really hit Dundalk. Stephen O'Donnell would change his teams by the week. To be fair some were forced by injuries.

The leaving out of the first eleven of Ryan O'Kane mystified me in the last few weeks. Ryan was better than most of the midfielders. Yet he was left out as the season came to an end. This made no sense.

Sam Durrant was used to replace Ryan. Sam is a very good player who I hope remains at Oriel next season. But Ryan was an established first team player who was performing well. There was no reason to leave him out.

Stephen O'Donnell was very disappointed at seeing Dundalk's hopes going up in smoke. He kept his players in the dressing room for an hour after the game. He did the same when Pat's beat Dundalk in Inchicore earlier in the season and in Waterford last season when the First Division side knocked Dundalk out of the cup.

I see no point in keeping teams in a dressing room post match for that length. It's best to do that in Oriel when both the manager and the players have clearer minds. Dundalk were terrible on Friday, leaving their European hopes were in tatters.

But if there was to be a post mortem on the game it would have been much better to have it in Oriel on Saturday.

The manager told the media that his side had a lot of possession but simply failed to create enough. Stephen O'Donnell said that with the goals Dundalk conceded during the season and given their away record they could not expect to get Europe. He said the giving away of the early goal on Friday night goes beyond the possibility of it being an accident or being unlucky.

This, he says, has been happening throughout the season.

The manager felt Dundalk had lots of possession, but that they were just not good enough in the final stage of the pitch. Dundalk failed to muster a single shot on target for the entire 90 minutes. On this basis alone Dundalk did not even deserve to get a point from the game.

Stephen O'Donnell was very downbeat after the game. He says they have given away too many easy goals to say they were even unlucky on Friday night. He says Dundalk had a lot of possession, but just not enough in the final third of the pitch.

The Dundalk boss accepted the performance was a snapshot of their season as a whole. This, he says, has been the story of their season.

But to me the answer is simple. Dundalk have just not been good enough this season.

O'Donnell said that they gave away an early goal and in the second half had a lot of possession but did not create enough. He accepted Dundalk's European dream was over.

He said that when you have a record like Dundalk's and you give away the goals Dundalk have done all season, you can't expect to get to Europe. He also said that conceding the first goal again like so many other times meant it had gone beyond the point of it being unlucky or an accident.

When asked by a reporter if the result hurt the players, Stephen O'Donnell said he should hope so. But he asked the reporter how he was supposed to know. The manager asked the reporter what sort of question was that. The reporter said that Stephen was in the dressing room with the players.

At the end of the, at times heated, press conference, the manager said they would be going all out to win the last three games of the season.

I still feel strongly that Stephen O'Donnell is the man who can take the club forward next season. But missing out on Europe leaves a big hole in the potential budget of the club. It's impossible to plug that.

But the manager should be allowed to sign whatever players he wants. If he wants to sign a League of Ireland player, that should happen. He told me last week that he does not want to be in the situation he was before the start of the current season. That was being left in a situation of signing players so late, and with no League of Ireland players coming in, it's time for the owners to back their manager and give him whatever resources he needs.

But it's also time for the same owners to come out and reveal their plans for the future of the club. Good communication is a vital skill in the running of a business.

The owners have barely revealed anything this season. It's not a good situation. I know they have undertaken a huge task in running a large club like Dundalk. But they decided to undertake the task. They must now plan ahead.

It was ironic that it was Will Jarvis who got the goal after just four minutes that ensured Dundalk would not be in Europe next season. He is with Shelbourne on loan from Hull.

The English club were due to take over Dundalk, but a last minute hitch in the deal saw the club taking over Shelbourne instead.

It was a massive blow for Dundalk. The club faces a very uncertain future. With no public sign of any new potential investors coming in, the loss of European money amounting to €350,000 minimum, and the huge costs the club faces for infrastructural development at Oriel, the owners have a huge task on their hands.

Oriel needs a new pitch for next season. But this is not a necessity. They will get away with the same pitch for another season.

I have already mentioned it over and over again. If the ground were to be sold to Louth County Council then the owners of the club would immediately have the burden of capital investment lifted off their shoulders.

With local elections pending in May, now is the time to get the council onside. Add to this a general election then there is no better time to have access to the eyes and the ears of the politicians. Supporters must get out and challenge the politicians as well. But the lead must come from the club. Drogheda United have new investors and are moving to a new stadium when developed. If they get in ahead of Dundalk and get a new stadium then the chances of Dundalk getting a new stadium decrease big time.

The owners have also carried out no fundraising since they took over the club. Thousands of euro has been lost as a result.

The death took place last Tuesday of Nicholas Coffey, the well known RTE broadcaster. Nicky was a top class reporter who lived and breathed Dundalk FC. Nicky is long retired and is much better known to the older Dundalk fans.

He was a heavyweight as far as his talent in RTE was concerned. He broke many top stories of national significance in his day.

Nicky became a director of Dundalk FC in November 1994 when a consortium headed by the late Enda McGuill took over the club. Enda was of course a director and chairman of the club for previous decades.

Nicky was passionate about the club. I had known him before he joined Dundalk, but I got to know him very well when he joined the club.

To his and most supporters' surprise, Dundalk won the league in the season Nicky joined the club. It was a marvellous achievement by then manager Dermot Keely to guide the club to such success.

Nicky stayed on as a board member for a number of years. He did two documentaries on Dundalk FC for RTE.

He also did a feature on the great cup winning team of 1952 that won the trophy for only the second time. Dundalk beat Cork in a replay by three goals to nil..

The team were given a civic reception in 2002 to mark the 50th Anniversary of the cup win. Nicky did a magnificent job on the piece he did on the 1952 team.

He brought that great time to life in such a magical way. As the players recounted the cup win, you could almost imagine while watching it, that you were actually at this epic final itself.

So another great Dundalk legend of the past has left us. But he leaves great memories. To Nicky's wife, children and all relatives and friends, I wish to extend my greatest sympathies.

Nicky was an uncle of well known Councillor Emma Coffey. To Emma in particular, deepest sympathy.

There was an immediate fall out for Drogheda United following the trouble at Oriel in the Louth Derby in Dundalk's last home game at Oriel.

The FAI said in a statement that a match official was struck by a pyrotechnic during the game. They said that an Independent Disciplinary Committee of their organisation had decided to put a ban on any Drogheda United supporters from attending the club's next away game on October 20th at Tallaght against Shamrock Rovers.

It's a shame that all of the Drogheda supporters are being banned as a result of the actions of a very few.

The FAI stated that Pyrotechnics are strictly banned in all stadiums. Now while I agree with the spirit of what they say, the FAI have never imposed a blanket ban on a club whose supporters let off flares at a game. All clubs have fans who let off flares at some time during the season at games.

The fact that a match official was struck by a flare is very serious. But nowhere in their statement does the FAI say that they are imposing the ban for the trouble caused by a tiny minority of Drogheda fans.

This minority threw flares after the game over the barriers in the direction of some Dundalk fans. One hit my shoe. It caused no damage. But that's not the point.

If the FAI are going to strictly punish clubs as they have done to Drogheda for fans using flares at games then all clubs should be treated the same. If there was a blanket ban on all club supporters whose fans use flares during games, maybe the problem could be completely stopped.

It's impossible for clubs to prevent fans from bringing flares into games. Dundalk fans also used flares during the Drogheda game.

While they did not throw any at match officials they broke a strict FAI rule. Dundalk will be fined for their fans using flares during the game. Surely it's possible for Dundalk and Drogheda to identify the supporters using flares and give them long term bans from all games.

And the same applies to all clubs. It was very serious that a match official was struck by a flare. They can cause serious injury or even death depending on the situation in which they are used.

There are no games this coming Friday as a result of the international break.

Have a safe week and please remember to be careful out there.