Derry City striker Jamie McGonigle sets his sights on UCD tonight

UCD vs. Derry City

Belfield Bowl

Tonight, 7:45pm

Jamie McGonigle insists that Derry City will be fully focused on tonight’s game at UCD and not get carried away with the weekend win at Shamrock Rovers.

The striker scored the winning goal at Tallaght on Friday night to send Derry City to the top of the Premier Division, where they now sit five points ahead of the champions.

Ben Doherty’s first half goal was followed up by McGonigle’s strike early in the second half and secured the Candystripes’ first victory at Tallaght in 10 visits going back to August 2017. It was a hugely significant result in many ways, but McGonigle believes it is much too early in the season to get carried away with the victory.

“It was a massive win for us coming down here,” he admitted. “Rovers had people suspended but if you look at the size of their squad, they have arguably the best squad in the country. We probably weren’t at our best either and we had to dig it out towards the end and thankfully we did this time.

“It’s definitely a massive win and we’re all buzzing that we ground it out. We conceded late against Pat’s but this time we stuck it out. We know we weren’t at our best and we’re only going to get better but we can’t get carried away because we’re only three games in.

“Last year we had the same result early on, a 2-1 win, but it didn’t really come to nothing at the end of the season, so we’re not going to get carried away and we’ll just concentrate on UCD.”

McGonigle’s goal was his third against Shamrock Rovers so far and came on the weekend of his 27th birthday. There was an eerie similarity to the goal he scored against Shelbourne in the FAI Cup final, with Ryan Graydon again providing the assist.

“It’s one of the things I was talking to a couple of the players about,” he reflected. “I hadn’t scored here last season and it was one of the only places I hadn’t scored and I wanted to make sure to get off the mark and that’s probably my first real chance of scoring so thankfully I took it.

“Patching’s reverse pass is obviously brilliant and Graydo had already looked up and I had made eye contact with him, probably because we had done it before in the cup final, and once it came to me it’s only a matter of sweeping it home.

“They were two great goals; Ben (Doherty) had the desire to run the whole way through and had composure when he got into the final third. It’s a habit I’ll not complain about. It’s my birthday weekend as well and I always seem to score when it’s my birthday so that’s a good luck thing as well.”

Big difference

UCD currently sit bottom of the Premier Division with one point from three games and go into tonight’s game on the back of a 4-0 defeat at Cork City on Friday. The Students gained a point at Dundalk and given Sligo Rovers a real scare at Belfield before that defeat, and McGonigle expects tonight’s game to be far from straightforward. It will certainly be a different prospect for the Candystripes, who will go from playing in front of 7,6000 at Tallaght to just a few hundred at UCD.

“It will be much different but it’s part and parcel of it and it’s up to us to get ourselves ready for that game,” he acknowledged. “It’s not all about playing in front of the big crowds, sometimes you have to do the dirty work and we’ll be ready to do it come Monday night.

“You definitely can’t take anything for granted because every team poses their own threats and we just have to make sure we’re set up right and be aware of them and go and do a professional job.”