Dundalk FC :: News

20 JULY 2008: POST MATCH REACTION // CRAWLEY

Dundalk left-back David Crawley is unperturbed by the chasing pack, despite the top four in this season’s eircom League of Ireland First Division title race closing to within three points of each other following the Lilywhites’ draw with second-placed Shelbourne at Tolka Park on Friday night. Dundalk remain two points clear thanks to Wexford Youths’ late equaliser at home to Waterford United, however, Sporting Fingal have now closed to within three digits after an impressive 3-0 victory in Longford.

Unworried by that, however, ex-Shels defender Crawley feels that if Dundalk start to look behind at potential dangers, it will only sidetrack them from the job in hand. “There are teams creeping up, but if we start worrying about them, it will only distract us,” the 31-year-old told dundalkfc.com following the top two’s stalemate at Tolka. “I’m not worried about any of them. What’s the use in worrying about other teams? Other teams should be worried about us because we’re top of the table.

“We have been on a bad run, but we’re after getting two wins and a draw from the last three games, so it’s very encouraging. There’s a long way to go. We’re at the top now, and, hopefully, we can stay there. All the pressure is on other teams. If we keep doing what we have been doing, we’ll not be too far away. Hopefully, we can drive on now.”

On the match itself, Crawley admitted: “It was a scrappy game, but it’s a good point. We came into it in the last 25 minutes of the first-half, and I think that’s when we played our best part in the game. In the second-half, we were up against it. But, at the end of the day, it’s Shelbourne, they’re two points behind us, and I would have taken that at the start of the campaign. We can’t complain really. We’ve had two away games in the last week and we’ve taken four points.

“We’re disappointed in tonight’s performance, to be quite honest. We’ve played them four times this year, and that’s probably the worst we’ve played in the four games. At the end of the day, it’s a point away from home, and we have a big game coming up now against Monaghan next Thursday night. Hopefully, we can get three points there and open up a lead of five points going into the weekend to put all the pressure on the other teams.

“Shels did pressure us tonight, but defenders are there to keep clean-sheets and that’s what we did. They are a good team and they have good players, but, at the end of the day, they didn’t score against us. We would have taken a point coming up here. We came for three points, but we’ll take one. We’re happy enough, because we know that we didn’t play well. We know we can play better. We are where we are, we’re still top of the league, and we’re looking forward now to next week.”