Captain’s dream finish

Dundalk captain Stephen O’Donnell hailed his comeback as a "fairytale" after his goal set the Louth men on their way to their first league title in 19 years against Cork City at Oriel Park last night.

The 28-year-old was told he would never play again after rupturing the anterior ligament in his knee against Shamrock Rovers on Good Friday.

However, after making a remarkable return in the last few weeks he returned to the starting line-up last night before popping up with a crucial goal three minutes into the restart.

That, coupled with Brian Gartland’s strike eight minutes from the end, ensured a famous victory for Stephen Kenny’s side and while the Lilywhites did things the hard way, O’Donnell says he couldn’t have scripted it better.

“The way it has panned out now, you wouldn’t have swapped it,” he said.

“It is sort of fairytale stuff. I had a feeling all week if I made those runs I could score. I’m sort of delighted we drew our last two games before tonight. We knew we had a big performance in us. People were questioning our bottle and that but I don’t think it was ever a case of that. It sort of suited us to know we had to win. There was no grey areas, we just had to go at it.”

It was the Galway man’s third league winner’s medal but he said it is now his most special.

“I’d say it would have to be. If you had said at the start of last season that Dundalk would win the league this season, people would have laughed at you. Even at the start of this season, when we lost 4-1 to Drogheda a lot of people were saying we were one-hit wonders and last season was a fluke, but we knew we had very good players.

“I know I scored tonight but the team went through the hard yards throughout the season. It was a phenomenal season and I’m delighted for everyone,” he said.

Cork boss John Caulfield rued a couple of missed chances in the first half.

“It was very disappointing to lose the title because we had come to win it,” he said.

“I felt we needed to score first but realistically in the first half we had a chance where the ball came across to Mark (O’Sullivan) at the edge of the box and he missed when Billy (Dennehy) was free at the edge of the box.

“Even at half-time we felt okay but in the second half we lost a bit of concentration for the goal and it was always difficult after that because they play really well but they’re good champions. We had a chance from a header from Rob Lehane with about 10 minutes to go and we were a bit unlucky but in the second half they dominated.”