Daire Doyle eyes Longford job on a permanent basis after Playoff heartbreak

Andrew Dempsey reports from City Calling Stadium

Interim Longford Town boss Daire Doyle admits that he would like to take over as permanent manager in the coming weeks after his side fell to a heart-breaking penalty shootout defeat against Cabinteely on Friday evening.

While the overriding emotion was that of devastation, Doyle insists that he was proud of side’s gallant effort against Pat Devlin’s charges.  

“I’ve really enjoyed coming and taking things over and take the responsibility, the added responsibility with managing the team and looking after things,” the former Longford midfielder said to extratime.ie.

“It’s something that I’ve loved and it’s something I’d like to continue to do at this club. Time will tell. We’ll see what happens in the coming days and weeks, but I’ve loved it.

“I know what the club expect and what the club want. And I think we all want the club to be at the highest level of club football in the country and that’s in the Premier Division.

“That’s what we wanted this year, but we fell short in the end, but I want to bring this club back into the Premier and hopefully I’m the man to do that.

“The role excites me. It does, it really does. My name is in the hat so that’s all I can do. As regards the dust settling on tonight, it will probably take a couple of days for it all to sink in, but that that’s our season finished unfortunately.

“I think we’ll bring the lads in next week to come together as a group. I thank them all for what they’ve given me all year, particularly in the last six or seven weeks since I’ve been in charge.”

In terms of the futures of his playing staff, the 38-year-old added; “It (the off-season) is a long time, and it’s difficult as well to try and keep things ticking over.

“It’s a case of the club trying to nail down a couple of players contracts because it’s an exciting and talented group in there.

“It would be great to keep a lot of that squad together. It may be difficult to keep a hold of one or two but that’s the nature of football when lads come into teams in the First Division and play really well, other teams may come in for them.

“That may happen, but I’d love to see that team stay together and give it a real push next year because I do believe that group could get promoted.”