With Stephen Kenny on board, Dundalk can dream of glory again

One defeat doesn’t define Dundalk’s remarkable season even if, with so much at stake, last night’s 2-1 loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv is bound to leave Stephen Kenny and his players with an acute sense of deflation at the end of their European dream.

All the more so because, as in the home defeat to AZ Alkmaar, the Lilywhites hardly did themselves justice in Netanya, self-inflicted blows helping an admittedly dominant Maccabi score the two goals which gave them the points but, as it turned out, nothing else, as AZ got the better of Zenit in Holland to join the Russians in the knockout stage of the Europa League.

Having thrived when the workload of a ferociously demanding season was at its heaviest, there’s bitter irony in the fact that, when the players were finally able to catch their breath, it could seem as if, with those final two games, Dundalk left their worst until last in Europe this season. Apart from anything else, that tells you something about the power of adrenaline as an antidote to fatigue, perhaps.