Ger Rowe Interview by Keith Wallace,
May 19th 2009.
From Bray to Bohs to Vietnam and back in the space of a few short months, one of Dundalk’s latest arrivals, striker Ger Rowe, is settling in well to life at Oriel Park after his footballing future was left in doubt during the close season. “I knew quite a few of the lads already before I came here, and the other lads have been really welcoming,” Rowe told the DFC Magazine.
Fitness fight
Rowe made his debut in Dundalk’s last home outing, a late defeat by Cork City, when he entered as a second-half substitute. A week later, he came off the bench again, this time after just 14 minutes, in the Lilywhites’ win at Derry City, before making his full debut last Friday at Bohemians. The 24-year-old says, however, that it will be up to another fortnight before he gets his fitness sharpened. “It will probably take me a week or two more,” he says. “The Derry game probably brought me on a lot more than the training had done in the two weeks previous to that. Last week was obviously disappointing but I got another 50-60 minutes so hopefully that will bring me on more again. I’ve missed four weeks of football, and as much as you can do through training and running in pre-season, there’s nothing like getting games under your belt.”
Bohs blow
The former Shelbourne, Saint Patrick’s Athletic, Shamrock Rovers and Bray Wanderers striker, who also had spells at Crusaders and Ballymena United in the Irish League, spent pre-season this year at Bohemians under his former Shels boss Pat Fenlon, who ultimately was unable to offer Rowe a contract. “I had a couple of things in the pipeline,” Ger explains. “Sean (Connor) spoke to me when he was Bohs manager and he was keen to bring me there. I was up training with Bohs this year and the manager there tried to offer me a contract on three or four occasions but the money just wasn’t there. There was nothing actually ever said to me that there’s not going to be anything. It’s just when the season started I stopped going in, to be honest. The day before the first game of the season, we trained and I went to the match and he said ‘things are moving and it could happen in the next few days’, but I just didn’t want to tread on people’s toes. I knew the season was getting going so I just knocked it on the head from there.”
Vietnam sojourn
Rowe instead made his way to Vietnamese club TT Ha Noi. However, after spending just a week of what was meant to me a fortnight stay, the Dubliner returned home and took up Connor’s offer which had been put on the table prior to Rowe’s journey to Asia. “I went over to Vietnam but I didn’t like it,” he says. “That was a longstanding thing. Before Christmas, someone asked me did I want to go over. A couple of people went over and they didn’t have great experiences. Glen Fitzpatrick – I’m fairly decent mates with Glen – went over and he said it wasn’t to be, but when there was nothing else around here with all the money being pulled out of clubs, I said ‘well I’ll go over and have a look at it’. I went over and seen for myself that Glen was right. It just wasn’t a nice place – it wasn’t for me anyway, but that’s not to say it might not be for someone else. Before I went, I met Sean and he said if it doesn’t work out he’ll offer me this, and sure enough when I came back it was still there so I signed here.”
Familiar territory
Rowe is familiar with Dundalk having helped Shamrock Rovers to fight off a sustained challenge from the Lilywhites for the 2006 First Division title. The striker, who spent last season at Bray Wanderers, signed for the Hoops during the July transfer window that season and scored on his debut before going on to net a further six goals in 13 appearances. Rowe remained for Rovers’ return to the Premier Division and was an ever-present as they ended the season in an impressive fifth after threatening to challenge for the title until the latter part of the campaign. And, despite Dundalk’s current lowly position of ninth, Ger sees no reason why the club can’t push on and replicate Rovers’ success. “The thing with Rovers is that we actually had a bit of a better start than Dundalk have had this year,” he says. “But there’s a lot more quality here than there was at Rovers when I played there. There’s no reason why we can’t finish fifth or why we can’t finish fourth. It just means getting a couple of wins under our belt and putting a run together. We’ve got the sort of team where if we beat one team, we’ll beat two and we can go on a run of six or seven games in a row and we’ll be right back up there.”
Dalymount disaster
Last weekend, Dundalk fell to their heaviest defeat since suffering a 5-0 mauling at the hands of Kilkenny City in July 2005. However, Rowe feels that the scoreline didn’t reflect fairly on how Dundalk played on the night and he’s confident that they can make up for that disappointment with a good display against Galway United tonight. “To be honest, I know 5-0 looks like we took a thumping but we didn’t really,” he says. “A couple of things went against us. We made one mistake, and when you make mistakes against big teams like Bohs you get punished for it. We went 1-0 down but I thought we were still in the game until the decision went against us with the foul on Chris Turner. If he had given that foul, which was blatant, Singhy would never have got booked and then he would never have got sent off two minutes later, and then the whole game spun on its head from there. We’re down a few bodies this week. We’ve got a small squad as it is but I think we still have enough quality to go and beat Galway. No disrespect to Galway, they’re a decent club and a decent side, but if you want to be doing well in this league you have got to be beating teams like this at home.”
Important period
Dundalk’s last match at Oriel Park came three weeks ago when Cork snatched a 2-1 win after the hosts had looked on course for victory when Chris Turner gave them a 61st-minute lead. Rowe, however, took the positives from that loss and says the side may have used those lessons learned to good effect in securing a 1-0 victory in Derry seven days later. “It was disappointing, but you learn from stuff like that,” he says. “We were 1-0 up against Derry from around the same time too and we dug in and hung on. That’s the sort of thing you need to be doing. It was even worse (against Cork) not to come out with a point at the end. It was really disappointing to lose the game from there, especially after we dominated the whole game. From my own personal point of view, I was just happy to get on the pitch. I had been on for ten minutes and I hadn’t touched the ball and I was probably too honest to try to keep it in and it went straight to them and they went up the other end and scored. Not a lot of people blamed me for that so I won’t be taking too much blame for it!” Tonight’s visit of Galway begins an important period for Dundalk as they travel to Drogheda United next week before facing Saint Patrick’s Athletic and Sligo Rovers in back-to-back home games. And, while Connor has set no specific targets for the squad, Rowe insists the players will go in search of the maximum. “He hasn’t set any points targets but as a footballer you want to win every game,” Ger says. “Realistically, you would probably have a target in your own head, but when you go out on the pitch you want to win every game, so 12 points is the target.”
