BY THE TIME he did emerge from the away dressing room at Tallaght Stadium on Friday night, Stephen Kenny, the Dundalk manager, cut a dejected, almost speechless, figure as he picked over his side’s second defeat in a week and fifth of the season.
The dominant force in domestic football for the last three years, the Lilywhites’ grip on the League of Ireland title is slowly slipping from their grasp as they lie 15 points behind leaders Cork City after a nightmare start to their defence.
Friday’s 2-1 reversal to Shamrock Rovers was arguably Kenny’s worst night in the job as his previously untouchable Dundalk outfit were outplayed and outfought for large periods and conceded two incredibly soft goals.
Five defeats in 12 outings now represents just one loss less than Dundalk suffered throughout the whole of last season as they marched to a third successive Premier Division crown.
How things have changed this year, with Kenny struggling to put his team’s performance into words.
“We’re disappointed, it’s a disappointing defeat for us and we can’t hide from that,” he said.
“Just conceded two poor goals from our point of view, one from a throw in and one from a corner kick — unacceptable.
“The cornerstone of our success was never conceding from set plays and we had this culture of not doing that so to concede goals like that from our point of view wasn’t good at all.
“The last two weeks, against Galway and now against Rovers, we’ve just given poor goals away and if we do that we’re giving ourselves a very difficult task in the games.”
While injuries haven’t helped their cause this term, Kenny was at a loss to explain the manner of which his defence has conceded four goals in two games.
He added: “Basic clearances we didn’t deal with in the first half, just basic clearances up the pitch. Didn’t deal with some basic stuff…disappointing night that’s the way it goes.
“The manner of the two goals is a poor reflection on ourselves and four goals we’ve conceded in the last two weeks you wouldn’t believe them. From our point of view that’s not good enough.
“Not going with a runner, just a lack of concentration and that was the case for Vinny Faherty’s goal last week as well. Just basically losing your marker from a corner which is just hard to believe really from my point of view. Basic goals from a defensive structure, we’ll be disappointed with that.”
Cork’s thrashing of Finn Harps on Friday night meant their advantage over Dundalk stretched to 15 points, with the defending champions slipping down to third.
When asked if that lead had become unassailable, Kenny said: “To be honest I’m not even looking at Cork and that’s in all seriousness. Just got to get ourselves right and we’ve got to get back on track. We’ve always had great away form, that’s been one of our strengths but this year away from home we haven’t been good enough.
“We’ve lost four out of six so that’s been poor really and we’ve always been good away from home. Not this season so far.
“We can’t even think about that [Cork], we’ve lost two games in a row now and we’ve got to focus on beating Sligo now. That’s obviously a huge game.”
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