30 May 2008: Post Match Reaction // John Gill

“I thought we were worthy winners. I thought we were brave. It takes a lot of qualities to make a good football team - bravery, moral courage, togetherness, belief - and all those qualities were shown tonight…if we show the character we showed tonight, I think that we have a great chance of going up.” - Gill   Dundalk manager John Gill hailed his side following another impressive performance which saw the Lilywhites return to the summit of the First Division once again, while he also revealed that funds are available to further strengthen his squad when the transfer window opens on 1 July. “I thought we were worthy winners,” Gill told dundalkfc.com. “I thought we were brave. It takes a lot of qualities to make a good football team - bravery, moral courage, togetherness, belief - and all of those qualities were shown tonight.   “I said to them in the dressing-room afterwards, ‘if you can show the same qualities in quantities that you showed tonight, that’s what teams are about’. It’s not all about playing pretty football - sometimes, it’s about digging in, and that’s what we done tonight. When you consider that we hadn’t got a goalkeeper for 75% of the game, it is a magnificent result. We’ve just got to believe in ourselves and keep working hard. I have a great squad here - you saw that tonight, where I was able to tinker around a little bit.   “I think what that will do tonight is it will give the group great belief, and we’ll just continue to work hard. I spoke to the Board this week, and there are funds available to bring in some more players, but it has to be the right type of player. The Board have made their intentions clear to me that they want to get out of this division, and we’re going to go for it. If we show the character we showed tonight, I think that we have a great chance of going up.   “I thought we started the game very, very well, and then we got caught defending, which we make a habit of doing - defending too high up the pitch when the other team is in good possession. When another team is in good possession, we should really drop off, and that’s something we’re going to have to work on. It’s not the first time it has happened - that is the third time Chris (Bennion) has been sent-off in the past year, all in the same type of situation.   “But, I thought after that, we were magnificent. I thought we were brave tactically. I felt we got a fortuitous goal then, which got us back in the game. I said to the players at half-time, what we need now is an extra 10% from everybody to make up for the man that we haven’t got, and let’s do to them what other teams usually do to us when they have ten men - and we got that.”   It is expected that goalkeeper Chris Bennion will be available for next week’s FAI Cup tie with Shelbourne, with the Scot instead serving his automatic suspension in Dundalk’s next league fixture after the break - a trip to Waterford on Friday 20 June. However, Gill has stated that Aaron Shanahan - who has been out of action for almost two months through injury - could be back in time to take his place against the Blues. “I think Shanahan will be back,” the boss said. “We’ll monitor him in the next week. I don’t want to panic. I’ll speak to the medical team - they think they’ll have Shanahan back. The only problem is, he might not have much game time, but he hasn’t let us down so far. I don’t want to spend unnecessary money and bring in another ‘keeper, and then end up with three ‘keepers. But we will review the situation. I’ll speak to the medical team tomorrow, and we’ll make a decision from there.”

 

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