Derry midfielder Duffy just getting started
The 30-year-old is certain things will improve overall for the team
Michael Duffy is hoping to be in the conversation for the League of Ireland’s top scorer come October after a superb start to life under Tiernan lynch.
Duffy’s goal-scoring form is arguably the only encouragement so far under the new manager with the Candystripes sitting bottom of the Premier Division with just one win in five games, And while the 30-year-old is certain things will improve overall for the team, he is hoping that his current form continues long into the campaign.
Only St. Patrick’s Athletic striker Aidan Keena, named the SSE Airtricity/ Soccer Writers’ Player of the Month for February, has scored more with five, with Duffy tied on three goals alongside former team mate Colm Whelan, now of Bohemians, and Galway United’s Patrick Hickey. Duffy only scored five league goals throughout the entirety of the 2024 season, and he is already chasing that number down just over a month into the new campaign.
“I would hope to be up there anyway,” he admitted. “I didn’t score enough goals last year so just as my own targets this year, I want to score a lot more goals and provide a lot more assists.
“I want to try to be a lot more consistent than I was last year. I felt I was in phases last year really so that’s just something I’ll work on this year, and if I end up close to that this year, that would be brilliant, but all I’ll focus on every week is trying to score and assist and getting us the points then whatever comes at the end, comes.”
Duffy was again Derry City’s saviour against Galway last week, hammering home a second half penalty which proved to be enough for a point. With regular penalty taker Pat Hoban on the substitutes’ bench, Duffy didn’t hesitate in taking responsibility.
“It was just the way it happened in the match,” he recalled. “I just went over and got the ball and (Liam) Boycie gave me the nod too and that was it. There was no real discussion about it. I went straight to get the ball because I wanted to it the penalty and I’m just glad we could score and we didn’t lose on the night.”
Duffy knows the pain of missing from 12 yards in the past, but being one of the senior players in a new team which needed a boost at that moment, he backed himself.
“I would be confident,” he said. “I know I’ve missed plenty of penalties in my career, but I still feel confident stepping up to hit a penalty. I just felt in the match we needed to get back in the game and I just felt that I could do it so I went to get the ball and do it for us.”
“I didn’t feel nervous hitting the penalty. I knew it was very important for us to get back in the game, but it doesn’t really feel like that when you’re on the pitch. The whole game I still felt we were always going to get back into it because we were playing well ad creating chances and we were on the front foot, so it didn’t really feel like a nervous moment. Obviously, when you look back after the game, it was a big moment in the game for us, but it didn’t feel like that at the time.”
Scoring goals has been a big problem for Derry City, not just this season, but going back well into the 2024 campaign. In the past 17 league games, City have scored just seven goals from open play, two of which have been own goals. The famine has followed into this year it seems.
“We can just focus on this year,” Duffy stated. “We know it’s been a big factor for us but it’s a part we’re working on every day. Tiernan is always working on creating more chances by getting into the opposition box.
“We need to start scoring goals, but you seen the other night, we had so many chances in the first half and all it takes is for one of them to go in and then we can go on to win the match by a few. But it’s just getting that first goal in the game so we can breathe in a match. We’ve gone 1-0 down a few times already and we’re always chasing the game and it kills your momentum a bit, but we’re working hard on it every day and we know it’s going to chance.”