Last night, Dundalk played their first pre-season game in Oriel Park ahead of the 2024 season. You may or may not have been there, either way, I’m sure you have some questions. I’m here to answer those questions.

  Q: Was it as cold as I thought it would be?

Yes. It was horror movie cold. It was rapidly losing feeling in all extremities cold. If you made the choice to stay home because you thought it would be too cold? You were right. I hope you enjoyed the large cup of cocoa you made for yourself and found Nationwide very interesting. You made the right choice. If you knew how cold it was by having been outside during the day or just looking out the window and decided you wanted to spend your evening in the elements watching a pre-season friendly on the frozen tundra of Oriel Park? You are a special breed. Consider yourself saluted.

  Q: I wasn’t there, what did I miss?

Essentially, you missed a pre-season friendly. There were some bright moments in the first half, Dundalk could and should have scored. The ‘could’ part is a good thing, the ‘should’ part is not as good. There is plenty of attacking potential in the group as it is, I’m assuming there will be a couple more additions made too. There was rust as expected but I managed to find my seat fine, the cold didn’t help the knees so I wasn’t as quick to my feet at half time as I would hope but this is what pre-season is for.

  Q: Did anyone mention yer man who went to Derry?

I didn’t hear anyone mention Dickie Kelly no.

  Q: No not him, the other one, the big fella.

I don’t know who you are referring to and I assure you everyone has 100% moved on from whoever you’re referencing and are in no way worried about how to replace him. I must stress that last part, no one is worried in the slightest about how to replace our all-time record goal-scorer. Whoever that is.  In all honesty, we need the whole team to come up with goals next season, we can’t heap a bunch of expectation on a new number 9 to be who the previous one was.

Let’s get this out of the way now, if he is in the team when they come to Oriel, he will absolutely score against us. Let’s not kid ourselves, we know that’s going to happen. Whether he goes full Adebayor when he does score is up to him. Let’s hope not, because no one likes being witness to a riot.

And we would like to be able to welcome him back to Oriel at some point in the future. What he has achieved at the club will never, can never be forgotten. What we witnessed watching him break the all-time goal scoring record is most likely a once in a lifetime occurrence.

Also, if he scores against us, sorry, when he scores against us, that doesn’t mean this was the worst decision the club has ever made and that you should burn your season ticket. Relax with the threats. No ticket burning, no lynching, no storming the castle demanding answers. The time came where a player’s interests and the club’s direction didn’t align. That happens in football.  

  Q: I haven’t been in Oriel in a while, is it still as glorious as I remember it?

Yes. Of course it is. It was very hard to see through frozen eyelids but the place still looks like home. Home that RTE won’t visit so there’s further proof of how special it is.

  Q: Was the coffee you got in Custom Coffee nice?

Yes it was. Highly recommended. Although I’m almost positive that the person working there thought I asked for a ‘skinny cappuccino’, which I didn’t. When they asked me what I wanted I think I mumbled ‘just a cappuccino’ and they may have misheard that mumble as ‘skinny’. Either way, I didn’t correct them, I just stood there frozen, from social awkwardness this time, not from the cold, and waited to see if I would notice the difference in a skinny cappuccino. Or what a skinny cappuccino was. I didn’t notice any difference. It was nice.

  Q:Was there a decent crowd there?

For a pre-season friendly on an ungodly night there was.

  Q: Are you excited for the new season?

We have to be realistic about where we are now. We’re building. Again. We’re not the finished article, we need to have collective patience, something that I know is in very, very short supply. We’ve had too much upheaval and uncertainty in the last few years and what we really need now is stability. Hopefully we’ve found that with our new owner.

  Q: It’s early days but based on what you saw last night, where can you see Dundalk finishing this season?

A tough question, but a fair one. I’d say anywhere in the top ten is a safe bet.