ROBBIE BENSON is looking for ‘one more taste of success’ as he weighs up his next move.
Benson parted company with Dundalk at the end of last season.
Although his second stint with the club started well — with European qualification — it went downhill from there and ended with relegation.
It was a far cry from his first spell which featured three league titles, an FAI Cup, two League Cups, a President’s Cup, a Champions Cup and qualification for the Europa League group stages.
But the midfielder is still relatively young at 32 and, having lined out in all but six of the Lilywhites’ matches last season, believes he still has plenty to offer in the Premier Division.
Benson told SunSport: “Uncertainty and change, not only in football, can be a little bit daunting but this is where I find myself now.
“It’s just a different experience because I’ve been fortunate enough for the majority of my career to know what I was doing for the following season.
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“This has probably been the reality for a lot of League of Ireland players but it’s the first time I’ve really been in this situation since I left UCD nine years ago.
“I’m getting older, but I’m not too old, I played 30 games last season and I’m looking for an opportunity to be competitive.
“There are a couple of things in the works but nothing has been signed for definite.
“But, wherever I go, I’ll be looking to prove myself. I’m hungry to compete.
“One more taste of success is what I am looking for before the end of my career and I hope to be at a club where their ambition matches mine.”
Being without a club has allowed Benson to spend more time with wife Dearbhla and their first child, Senan, born in October, five days before the club’s descent to the First Division was confirmed.
He said: “It has been nice to have that time with them.
“She’s a schoolteacher so when she’s off in the summer I usually only have a week off and during my off-season she’s normally in school.”
But asked if that has left him with less time to stew over Dundalk’s demise, he said: “The highs you have in football can’t be replicated at home and the highs you have in your family life can’t be replicated on the pitch.
“They’re different but it’s hard on a player’s family when things aren’t going well and you’re going home after being beaten on a Friday night.”
This season’s conclusion is a far cry from what Benson had become accustomed to, as he won the 2018 FAI Cup final with Dundalk to complete a Double, and three years later, scored the decisive penalty for St Pat’s in the decider.
Having suffered relegation for the first time in a decade, he feels as driven as he was after losing another final on spot-kicks in 2017.
He recalled: “I spent the whole off-season thinking if Cork City had missed one penalty and we had scored one how different it would be.
“But it fed the hunger for the following season and that’s how I feel now.”
DUNDALK’S DROP-OFF
Benson — who has a master’s in actuarial science — admitted it was still hard to get his head around how things had gone so badly wrong at Dundalk.
Third in 2022, they finished fifth in 2023 — just two points behind Shelbourne — and he observed: “They got three more points last season and they won the league.
“Going into the season, I wouldn’t have foreseen us being relegated but we lost players and all of sudden you don’t win in the first seven or eight games and you think, ‘Oh God’.
“You’re going to have every team in the Premier Division going in this year dreaming of Europe but one of them is going to be relegated and another will be in a play-off. That’s the reality.”
With the league kicking off in just under six weeks’ time, the Athlone man is hoping to get something sorted sooner rather than later.
Benson added: “I’m training on my own but you can only get so fit you can get without being on the pitch.”
