GEORGIE KELLY IS enjoying being the man of the moment. The Bohemians striker has been scoring for fun recently, sitting on 12 league goals for the season with an obvious highlight the recent four-goal haul against Drogheda.
The league’s top-scorer also bagged the winner in the Dublin derby win over Shamrock Rover and notched another in Friday’s defeat of St Patrick’s Athletic, and was an obvious and deserved winner of the SSE Airtricity/Soccer Writers Ireland Player of the Month award for June, which he received yesterday.
“Delighted to get it,” Kelly says.
“It means a whole lot. It’s nice, a little accolade to collect. It’s just a representation of our form over the last six weeks.
“I think it’s correlated with how we performed and the chances we created. As we improved throughout the season, you get more chances and that results in more goals.”
On the pitch, Kelly is beginning to look like his old self again.
The Donegal native made his name with three prolific seasons at UCD, scoring 37 league goals in 68 games, but saw the goals dry up at Dundalk and later, St Patrick’s Athletic.
In a highly competitive Dundalk squad, Kelly still managed 14 goals in 48 games before a difficult loan spell in Inchicore.
Tough times? Not quite.
“I wouldn’t describe them as tough. I enjoyed them,” Kelly says.
“It was a learning period for me, I went to Dundalk knowing I wasn’t going to be first choice. I probably did hope to play a bit more than I ended up doing. I wouldn’t describe them as tough, more enjoyable and as a learning experience more than anything.
I would have taken a lot from Pat (Hoban). He’s probably one of the best goal scorers in the history of this league. Training and watching Pat day in, day out, you take a lot of little bits around movement. In particularly around… games can kind of bypass you, especially when you’re a kind of hitman striker, there can be games where you get very, very little and then in the last five minutes Pat would still pop up with goals.
“Even then with David (McMillan) coming in, there are loads of things you pick up. There are some great leaders in that (Dundalk) set up.”
At Bohemians, he has flourished under the guidance of Keith Long, a manager who has been steadfast in his belief that Kelly would be able to rediscover his best form after a slow start at Dalymount Park.
“You have to step up when it comes to it (being the lead striker), that’s something I didn’t experience in the last couple of years, getting those demands from people and it probably did take me a while to adapt. I’m enjoying it now, though.
“The front three, front five, as the games go on we’re growing and gelling. Things are looking good and the key thing is we’re creating a lot of chances, that’s a real positive and helps us as an attacking force.”
A positive too, for Long, whose faith in the player hasn’t taken long to pay off.
“As a striker you can’t beat putting the ball in the back of the net, so we hope that continues for Georgie,” Long says.
Can Georgie continue to score goals between now and the end of the season? I have firm belief that Georgie can be a consistent goalscorer for us. I think his teammates do and I know the backroom staff do. We will continue to try and play in a manner that will play to Georgie’s strengths and hopefully he will continue to score goals.”
So far, so good. Next up is a trip to Iceland, where Bohemians take on Stjarnan in the first leg of the Europa Conference League first qualifying round tomorrow.
For Kelly, who has never scored a goal in European competition, it’s another chance to hit a new milestone ahead of next week’s return leg at the Aviva Stadium.
“When you play in Europe, standards are all just lifted, it’s a lot more physical from what I’ve seen, a lot more athleticism from teams, fitness wise it’s always a step up. We’ll be well prepped.
“I know teams used to stretch teams a bit more, it was always more beneficial for strikers. Listen, it just depends on opposition and how you play, how we perform.
“At the minute, we’re going in on a little buzz, a little confidence. We’re looking forward to it.”
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