DERRY City’s Daniel Kelly has conceded that he struggled to settle into life on Foyleside, but believes he is now starting to find a bit of form at what is the crucial part of the season.
The 28-year-old, who scored his first goal for the club in their 5-1 win over bottom side Drogheda United last Friday, says he is starting to find his feet and is looking forward to what is a massive month for the club, starting with Thursday night’s clash at Sligo Rovers.
“The first few weeks of the season I wasn’t at my best,” he conceded.
“I think it was everything put together, in terms of moving away from home, and it was hard to settle in at the start, but I felt as the season was going on and in particular the Waterford game down there, that was the one.
“After that game I thought ‘right let’s kick on now’. I think I have done that over the last few weeks and have had big impacts in games, whether that’s coming off the bench or starting.
“But yeah I’m happy to break my duck and thankfully my effort hit the back of the net and I scored my first goal for the club.
“We’re now hitting the business end of the season and you want to be winning every game and it’s great to be part of it, but listen we’ll be just taking it game by game.
“I know it’s an old cliché, but we obviously have a huge game against Sligo and then we start Europe, but we’re in great form and let’s hope we can carry it on.
“I think everyone is flying and confidence is huge in football and as everyone saw after the Drogheda game, everyone is flying with confidence. To score five goals in a game in this league is a real credit to everybody.”
Sligo side secured an impressive 2-0 victory over champions Shamrock Rovers last week and the ex-Dundalk man knows that Ruaidhrí Higgins’s side have struggled against the Bit O’Red in recent times.
In fact, in their last four visits they haven’t scored a goal and Kelly knows they have to put that right on Thursday evening.
“It will obviously be at the forefront of our minds, as we know that we’ve not been great at the Showgrounds,” added the pacey winger.
“It’s something to change and there’s no better group of lads to go and get a win now.
“Obviously we don’t have the greatest record at Sligo, but I don’t think we’ve come into a game against Sligo in this sort of form, so we need to take it and carry it through.
“We know obviously the Drogheda game was tough, but we sort of dominated it and scored plenty of goals so we need to just take confidence out of that.
“I know they beat Rovers 2-0 last Friday, but we’ll be going there on Thursday to go and try to get the three points, but listen we all know it’s going to be a very tough game, but we’ll see what happens.”
The Dublin native was pleased with the Candystripes’ comfortable win over the Drogs and he felt that Cameron Dummigan’s stunning opening goal just showed his class.
“It was a great performance. I felt we started the game really well,” he added.
“Obviously we had a little break and the momentum has carried on. Usually when you take a couple of weeks off you might hinder your momentum, but that wasn’t the case against Drogheda. You saw to a man we were outstanding and fully deserved the win.
“It was unbelievable from Cammy and to be fair he has that in his locker. To be fair he’s up there with probably one of the best players I’ve played with and I think people can see him, you can put him at left-back, right-back, centre-back or centre-midfield, you could put him anywhere and he’s outstanding and I’m delighted for him.”
Another plus point for City against Kevin Doherty’s men last Thursday evening was the return of Colm Whelan and Kelly is keeping his fingers crossed the young striker can make an impact in the run-in.
“I’m delighted for him, he’s a great lad and everyone knows that he’s been through a very, very tough couple of years and I think the reception he got was a credit to himself,” explained the former Bohemians man.
“I don’t think people see the graft he has put in. He comes in every day, works hard and he’s an unbelievable player and I just hope over the next few weeks, he gets a good bit of luck, gets minutes into the tank.
“I think his actual record when’s on the pitch for Derry is actually very, very good, so listen, if he keeps doing that, we’ll be happy campers.”
