O’Donnell very happy with Dundalk's performance against UCD

Stephen O’Donnell was a very happy man after his side beat bottom of the table UCD 2-0 at Belfield on Monday night.

Goals from John Martin on 34 minutes and one from man of the match Ryan O’Kane in injury time  gave Dundalk the win and six points from their two weekend games.

The Dundalk boss says that they had projected that if they got the two wins they would shoot straight up the league table.

They have done this with the 3-2 win over Drogheda United on Friday and 2-0 win over UCD on Monday night.

It was also Dundalk’s first win over UCD at the Belfield bowl in two years.

Dundalk are now fourth from top. Last week, they were fourth from bottom.

O’Donnell says UCD is not an easy place to play. He said it was a difficult pitch.

He says UCD are a good team. They are well coached and a skillful team.

O’Donnell was particularly delighted with the victory in light of the fact that UCD were unbeaten in their last three games at home.

O’Donnell says they limited UCD to very little in the first half. He was very happy with the way his side contained the students to little or nothing in the second half as well.

Dundalk had a goal disallowed in the second half when Conor Malley headed home a Ryan O’Kane free. He says he has no idea why it was disallowed.

The Dundalk boss pointed out that Ryan O’Kane also came close in the first half with a screamer that forced the UCD keeper into a quality save.

The Dundalk manager says his side have been very resolute in recent games.

They have responded very well and answered their critics, he says.

Dundalk brought on Pat Hoban, Keith Ward and Robbie Benson midway through the second half.

But within three minutes Robbie Benson went down with a hamstring injury. It’s a totally different injury from the one that has hit him over the past two seasons.

The Dundalk boss says it is heartbreaking to see that Robbie Benson’s injury has happened given how much he has been hit with other injuries in the past two seasons.

O’Donnell says Benson has been moving so well and showing what a player he is in recent weeks.

He looks set to be out for weeks and join the long casualty list of players at Oriel.

O’Donnell says winning the weekend’s back-to-back games meant a lot to him. He says Saturday night’s game against Sligo Rovers in the Showgrounds will be very tough.

Dundalk will have an extra day to recover. The management team will now assess things and see where they go from here.

The manager said he decided to keep Pat Hoban, Keith Ward and Robbie Benson on the bench at the start for the reasons demonstrated when Benson did come on and got a hamstring injury within three minutes.

The manager revealed that Pat Hoban has not really trained since coming back from his injury.

He says Hoban had only started his first game since the injury on Friday.

The manager thought it would be madness just to throw him on at the start of the UCD game considering all the facts.

O’Donnell says they have to manage their players carefully. He says he is aware of what each player is capable of and if he has a player returning from injury, he knows how to manage them.

O’Donnell says Ryan O’Kane was top class. He made the first goal and scored the second. He explained that Ryan had not started every game this season so far as he played in every game last season.

He also played in every one of Dundalk’s pre-season games. O’Kane was coming into the start of the season without any real break. It was Ryan’s 30th game in a row with Dundalk.

O’Donnell raised the point that it’s not as if you are dealing with a big athletic player in Ryan. He felt that taking Ryan right out of the team would freshen him up and he says it has.

The manager was full of praise for Hayden Muller, the Dundalk centre half. He is under 21 and although he made a mistake for one of Drogheda’s goals on Friday; he came into training on Saturday with a very positive attitude.

O’Donnell believes Hayden is typical of the type of young player he is working with. He believes they are a great group and can only get stronger. Finally, O’Donnell says Sligo will be a tough game as are all games. He says they will just take each game as it comes and see where it goes from there.

The Dundalk boss says he hopes to have a couple of the injured players back this week. But he says he will not give any details as that would help opposition managers.

With that, Stephen O’Donnell headed back to a very happy dressing room in Belfield happy in the knowledge that his side are back in the hunt for a European Place.