Andy Myler eyeing consistency as his young guns look to take flight in 2021

In the midst of the heartbreak of an injury-time play-off defeat in extra-time to Longford Town, UCD boss Andy Myler and his side can hold their heads up high following the 2020 season.

Myler’s young guns had the best attacking record in the First Division – and they also held the best attacking league record in the League of Ireland along with top-flight Champions Shamrock Rovers.

“Overall, we’re reasonably happy with the season,” Myler told extratime.com. “The overriding feeling of the season is that we were incredibly lucky to get to play football.

“Even from inside the university the lads could mix with each other when all the other students in the university couldn’t which was a real privilege. As for the on-pitch events, we’re happy with how it went.”

UCD often lined out with a 3-4-1-2 formation during the 2020 season, with the front three of Liam Kerrigan, Yoyo Mahdy and Colm Whelan all impressing.

Between the UCD front trio, they racked up 36 of their 44 league goals, with Mahdy scoring 16, Whelan netting 15 and Kerrigan firing home five.

“They were really good to work with,” Myler said on his front three. “They take on praise and critique in the right way.

“They’ll all be really good players in this league, and they probably have a good chance at playing beyond this league.

“There’s no surprise to see them doing so well when you see it in training. The challenge for next year is to try and back it up now.”

2020 was also Myler’s first full year as a senior manager in the League of Ireland. He took over from interim UCD boss Maciej Tarnogrodzki after the 2019 season.



The ex-UCD and Drogheda United striker’s only prior experience in senior League of Ireland management was as a coach with Shamrock Rovers under Michael O’Neill.

But despite that and having taken over a side that had just been relegated from the Premier Division, his first year at the helm of a League of Ireland club was something that he relished.

“The group are a really coachable one in terms of wanting to learn and being good around the place,” he said.

“The younger guys improved that bit you would have hoped for them to do and we’ll just look and try improve on that again going forward.

“I loved it, and I think anyone who goes into management loves it. Wins feel ten times better and losses feel twenty times worse, but that’s all part of it.

“If it was with another group it might have been more difficult but it’s a great group to be involved with.



“It’s a privilege for me to be involved with them as people. I was lucky that we have such a great group like that at the club.”

During the 2020 season, the Students racked up some big wins along the way, none more so than their ‘freakish’ 8-0 demolition of Wexford in September, before they would then coast to a 6-0 win away to Cobh Ramblers.

And while the big wins were welcome, Myler believes that his side impressed him most towards the end of the season – especially during the second-half of their 2-2 draw with Galway United.

“I’d tend to gloss over the big wins we had. The 6-0 win v Cobh was our best performance as a whole,” he said.

“The second half in Galway was really good and it showed a lot of the things we had been working on we brought into play during that forty-five minutes. It’s those kind of things that stick out for me.

“The performance in the play-off game against Longford was really good. We reacted to setbacks well, obviously it didn’t go the way we wanted but there’s those pieces that we were pleased with.

“The one thing we look for is consistency and improvement week on week and towards the end of the season we were seeing bits of that starting to come out.”

And after signing up Sam Todd, Adam Lennon and Donal Higgins for 2021, the UCD boss is looking forward to a second-tier on ‘steroids’.

“I didn’t think that it was going to get more competitive than this year, but it looks like it has gone on steroids for next year,” he explained while looking forward to 2021.

“There’s nobody that has disimproved from last year and the guys who have come down have added some real quality to the league.

“I’ve a feeling that the playoff spots will be a real challenge in terms of the teams that are going for it.

“It will be a really exciting league and it’s something that we’re really looking forward to.”

    About Andrew Dempsey

    View Full Profile