In For The Kill

While Waterford’s focus is squarely on Saturday afternoon’s winner-takes-all clash with Galway United at the RSC, it appears that Ciaran Kilduff will be announced as the club’s new manager in the coming days. It’s the nature of the beast that long-term and short-term planning need to go hand-in-hand and the club has been working on procuring the right choice as John Coleman’s replacement while the team and coaching staff have been fighting to fulfil their side of the bargain by keeping the Blues in the Premier Division for next year. Speculation grew in the past 24 hours that an approach was made for First Division-winning manager Kilduff and his resignation from Dundalk this morning has cleared the way for his unveiling as Waterford’s new boss on a multi-year deal.

The 37-year-old from Kilcock, County Kildare, is still based in his hometown with his young family, which would give him approximately a ninety-minute drive to Waterford for training and matches. He had one job to do this year – take the country’s second-most successful club back into the top flight – and he delivered under all the pressure that went with that mission. As he told Louth local media this week, “I think we got maximum bang for our buck, which I’m very proud of.” Those words would be music to the ears of any potential employers and it now appears that Waterford is the next step on the managerial journey of the impressive young leader.

His final act as Dundalk manager was winning last Sunday’s Leinster Senior Cup final. The Lilywhites were 2-1 victors over St Patrick’s Athletic in Richmond Park when the team would have been excused for taking their foot off the gas after the league title celebrations two weeks previously. Instead, having secured promotion, Kilduff’s men still went to Cobh and won their final league game and delivered more silverware on Sunday. Speaking to Dundalk journalist James Rogers after the final, Kilduff showed his competitive instinct. “It’s just the way I am, but I’d hate if we had won the league and then went down to Cobh and got rolled over and then came here tonight and maybe suffered a high-scoring defeat. No matter who you are, when you’re competing in a game of football you want to win.”

 

Celebrating his crucial late equaliser away to AZ Alkmaar in 2016

Kilduff began his League of Ireland playing career with Shamrock Rovers alongside fellow teenaged forward Pádraig Amond, now captain of Waterford, having progressed from their Under-16s through to the first team under Pat Scully. He spent the 2008 season on loan with Kildare County, scoring at the RSC that August and getting another against the Blues on a memorable match on Hallowe’en night at Station Road. He moved to UCD in 2009 and was a vital part of the team that won the First Division that year before returning to Rovers in 2011, winning the Premier Division and playing in the Europa League group stages. There was a brief loan spell with Cork City and a season in Inchicore with St Pat’s. 

Stephen Kenny brought Kilduff to Dundalk in 2015, famously describing him as “more of a French striker”. Whatever his nationality, Kilduff won two more League of Ireland titles at Oriel Park and returned to the Europa League group phase. Next, he spent eighteen months in Florida playing for Jacksonville Armada before coming back to sign for Shelbourne in 2019 and winning another First Division title, finally retiring after the 2020 season. Always planning for his post-playing career, the Kildareman was working as a substitute teacher by day while playing with Shelbourne having secured an Arts degree from Maynooth University. 

His first managerial role was with Athlone Town’s women’s team and he was an immediate success, winning the 2023 FAI Cup in his debut season and adding the club’s first ever Women’s Premier Division title in 2024. He stepped down at the end of last year to take the vacant manager’s job at his old club Dundalk who had just been relegated. His team led the First Division from start to finish with talented youngsters like Eoin Kenny and Vinnie Leonard supported by his veteran former teammates Daryl Horgan and Keith Ward. By the end of the first round of fixtures, the Lilywhites had eight wins and a draw from their opening nine games. They faced a little more adversity in the summer months before eventually winning the title by ten points from a dogged Cobh Ramblers’ challenge. 

 

Winning the league with Athlone Town in 2024

Less than two weeks after the final league game, however, Kilduff has resigned as Dundalk manager amid heavy speculation that he will be announced by Waterford in the coming days. Despite winning promotion, off-field matters appear too chaotic at Oriel to be able to hold on to the ambitious young manager. When they should have had a jumpstart advantage on planning for next season, the Louth club is, instead, abuzz with uncertainty over gaining a licence, discontent with ownership and infighting. Kilduff seems to have hung on as long as he was prepared to for news on a takeover and a serious proposal for next season, but has had to make other plans for his family’s security. As Dundalk owner John Temple told The Irish Examiner this week, “He (Kilduff) is under demand, but go back to the uncertainty, when upstairs are fighting, no-one likes it downstairs. When Mammy and Daddy are fighting, the kids don’t like it.”

Temple’s comments only added to the insecurity over future plans when saying Kilduff should be signing “for another year at least”. Waterford are more likely to offer a three-year deal with, for once, far more stability and a more exciting project going forward. The only other change expected in the Premier Division for next year may be at Galway United, but the rumour mill has long suggested Jon Daly would take over as manager if John Caulfield ‘moves upstairs’ to a Director of Football role so the RSC would certainly be an attractive move for Kilduff.

From Waterford’s perspective, he ticks many boxes despite his relative inexperience. The preference among staff in Waterford and the decision-makers in Fleetwood appears to be for a young, hungry manager who knows the league. Ruaidhri Higgins fit that bill and was the first choice back in April when Keith Long’s tenure ended. Having considered many preferred options, the club went with John Coleman who was probably the opposite of that profile, but time was moving on quickly midseason. 

It’s now 32 days since Coleman’s dismissal, with Matt Lawlor ably filling in on a temporary basis, and the powers-that-be have had time to consider their options. Securing Waterford’s place in next season’s Premier Division is clearly the first, second and third priority, but results have been very kind to the Blues over the past week and their destiny is in their own hands when they host Galway United on Saturday. Kilduff’s expected appointment would surely be contingent on Waterford remaining a Premier Division club and planning for next season has been underway for many weeks with signings and re-signings in the offing based on top flight survival. For now, it is up to Lawlor and his charges to deliver a platform in the Premier Division that the new manager can build upon with no time to waste.