Tiarnán Mulvenna is likely to miss this year’s Premier Division kick-off but is remaining “positive” in his fight to be fit for Dundalk’s opening league game on 5 March. The 21-year-old striker sustained a serious knee injury in a practice match on the fifth day of pre-season training and, as well as missing the Lilywhites’ seven-match warm-up schedule, he could be ruled out for the first three weeks of the season depending on the results of an MRI scan which the young star faces next Wednesday. But when he does eventually return, Tiarnán is aiming to be “one of the main strikers in Ian Foster’s plans”.

Positive thinking
“I’ll think positively and say hopefully I’ll be back for the first game,” he told dundalkfc.com in an exclusive interview. “But even if I am back I probably won’t play because I’ll have been out so long, so I’ll probably miss the first one or two games. I’ll find out more from the MRI scan. I have to wait but I think it’s cartilage damage or something behind the knee. The worst case scenario would be keyhole surgery, but hopefully it doesn’t come to that. At most, hopefully, it will be six weeks and at the least three weeks before I get back, so there’s still another bit to go yet. It’s worse than first expected.”

‘Naturally fit’
Mulvenna signed a new one-year full-time contract at Oriel Park on 7 January last, a deal which will see him add to his 75 appearances and 12 goals accumulated since he made his debut for the club against Athlone Town in May 2007. He is one of four players under the age of 22 in an 11-man squad which has an average age of just 26, and he’s hoping that his youth will see him make a speedy return to fitness when he resumes training. “It will put me behind (in fitness), but at least I’ll still be able to do a bit of work, hopefully, that can get me back quicker,” he said. “But I’m probably naturally fit anyway. I’m still young – it’s not like I’m an auld fella coming back or something like that. But when I do come back, I’ll come back gradually anyway so my fitness will come back that way.”

‘Great manager’
‘Mr. T’ is entering his fifth straight season in the senior setup at Dundalk and this year will see him work under his third different manager, having started under John Gill in 2006 and worked under Sean Connor last term. And just three weeks into Foster’s reign, the youngster has praised the new manager’s pre-season training sessions. “It has been great so far; he’s a great manager,” Tiarnán said. “Him and Hats (Wayne Hatswell) are very good, they have different ideas to what I’m used to over the last two years with different managers, so it has been very enjoyable – even though I’ve been injured. The training is very good. The last two regimes I’ve been under were more running probably in pre-season – this one is probably more ball-orientated. You could see that in the way Galway played, he likes to play football.

Pass the ball
“That is the way he has been doing pre-season,” he added, “and I think that’s the way he wants us to be playing as well, the ball on the deck, so in that kind of way it has been a lot better than what I’ve been used to. That’s the way Ian likes to play and that is what he has been trying to drill into our heads, passing and keeping the ball on the deck and trying to use this place as a fortress, which it hasn’t been probably since we’ve been back in the Premier Division. We probably haven’t been winning as much as we should have been on it, so hopefully we can use it this year to our advantage and get the points that will help us.”

Fenn hope
Mulvenna is also pleased with the squad which Foster has now assembled at the border venue and he is looking forward to playing up front alongside Neale Fenn. “It’s a good squad,” he said. “As Ian said himself, he’s starting from the back and getting a good backline in, and we have that now with the players that are here. It’s getting there. Then you have Alan Cawley in midfield and Neale Fenn up front. He has great experience and that will help me an awful lot, hopefully. If I get the chance to play with him, obviously I can’t wait - hopefully he’ll come and get the ball and I’ll be in behind.”

Eyeing improvement
After a half-season of substitute outings during 2007, Tiarnán made huge strides during the following year when he made 29 league appearances as Dundalk clinched the First Division title. And after another 29 league appearances last season the youngster is hoping that this year will be his year. “Well, hopefully, this year will be the one when people will get rid of the ‘young fella’ type of thing,” he said. “I want to be known as one of the main strikers in Ian’s plans and prove to people in the League of Ireland that I can score goals when I play up front. Last year was good because I played out on the wing as well, so I know more probably about the league now than I ever did, and every time I did play up front I scored, so hopefully this season it will be a successful year for me and the team.” However, he has reiterated his desire to play in attack. “I’m not really a winger,” he said. “I’ll do it if the team needs it, but I’m a striker and I want to play up front and score goals, and help the team in that kind of way.”

‘Very strong’
Dundalk began their pre-season match schedule last Sunday with a scoreless draw against Athlone Town at Oriel Park, and they netted their first win of 2010 thanks to Liam Burns’ 70th-minute goal at home to Shelbourne on Tuesday night. The Lilywhites continue their preparations for the new campaign on Saturday afternoon when they face Bray Wanderers in Wayside Celtic’s ground in Kilternan. “I think we’re strong,” Mulvenna commented after watching the first two games from the sidelines. “I think when we close teams down we’re better than when we try to stand off them. In the second half against Shels game when we were high tempo, I think that was the way we’ll play for the season. That will help us, if we’re closing teams down, don’t give them time and then we get the ball back and play our own game. If we do that, I think we’ll be a very successful team.”

Burns key
Burns returned to the club just an hour before the Shels game, and Mulvenna believes his signing is “vital”. “He knows the league awfully well, he’s won the league, and he’s probably the most experienced man that we’ve have,” he said. “I think he’s very important. He went close to winning ‘Player of the Season’ as well, so that shows how good he was for us, so I think it was vital that we kept him and thank God he’s here again.” Mulvenna then concluded by giving his hopes for the season, with the youngster aiming for a top-four finish. “My aim is to play as much as I can and score as many goals as I can,” he said, “and help the team to progress from last year. Hopefully, we can improve. The league has got stronger up the top, but teams around us have probably got weaker, so hopefully we can push on better than last year. I think we can challenge for the top three or four, with the players that he has brought in. We have league winners here. It’s just a bit of luck that we need. I think it’s important that we use this place as a fortress. That would be the aim, push for third and try to get European football, and to get the good times back into Oriel Park.”