Kristian Dennis on his goals and Carlisle United's win at Salford City

Such as a centre-half popping up on the right wing to set up one of his goals. “He’s a weirdo isn’t he,” smiled Dennis when he spoke about the marauding Jon Mellish at Salford City.

“I was getting cramp towards the end so I could hardly move. I thought I’d just stand in the box and hope for the best. It took a big deflection and it fell to me, and that’s just happy days.”

That was Dennis’s second of the game, Carlisle’s fourth, and his 12th of an impressive personal and collective campaign.

United’s three-goal spell in the second half of their 4-1 win was met with increasing gusto in a packed away end. What was it like running towards, and scoring in front of, that?

“You can’t explain it, but it’s why you play football,” said Dennis. “You want to get results like this in front of the fans who have travelled in these numbers. It’s just brilliant.

“When it went to 1-1 it could have got a bit shaky but they were still with us the whole way. Thankfully we got the goal with about 20 minutes left and there was only going to be one winner from there.”

Dennis bookended United’s latest victory with goals in the third and 80th minutes. It was his second double on the road in 2022/23 (his other came at Tranmere) and a total of 12 from 19 appearances is excellent going indeed.

He is reeling in the possibility of becoming Carlisle’s first 20-goal-in-a-season man since Karl Hawley in 2005/6.

Dennis, though, is clearly too experienced to be held to landmarks, publicly at least. When informed by United’s media team on Saturday that he had reached the 100 career goals milestone, he professed not to have known about that, and to be “buzzing” to have learned about it.

On this season’s potential numbers, he added: “I don’t know – I’ve just got to get on the pitch first and try to get goals to help the team win games.

“As long as we’re winning games and pushing up the table then it’ll mean we’ll have something to play for come the end of the season. If we keep scoring goals hopefully we’ll be winning. We’ve just got to be up there.”

Dennis pounces for his third-minute opener at Salford (Image: Richard Parkes)

United impressed in particular on Saturday in the way they responded to Salford’s fightback. Matt Smith cancelled out Dennis’ opener at a time early in the second half when the force seemed to be growing with the home side.

Cue Carlisle’s devastating riposte. “That’s what we’re about – we don’t let our heads drop, we keep going and we know we’re going to get chances,” said Dennis.

“We’ve just got to be there to finish them off and Callum [Guy] did that with a brilliant strike from the edge of the box. There really was only one winner then.”

Corey Whelan extended the advantage before Dennis met that Mellish cross to garnish the afternoon. Afterwards Paul Simpson declared it the most “complete” performance of his second United reign.

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Did Dennis agree? “I’d say so, yeah. To a man we were brilliant, but there’s no point winning here if we can’t back it up in the next few weeks. We’ve got a couple of home games coming up in the league and we’ve got to put markers down.”

Saturday was, at least, a statement – another word Simpson used post-match – and a stamp of Carlisle’s character as they jumped back into the play-off places.

That message ought to resonate, Dennis feels. “Teams will look and see that we were a point apart before the game and they’ll see that we’ve come here and smashed them,” he said.

“Hopefully teams will take a note of us and think that they don’t want to be going up there to Cumbria.”

Dennis, whose opener had been a classic piece of poaching as he anticipated a saved shot from Fin Back, is one member of a side and squad that are giving supporters – and there were 1,315 of them at Salford – increased optimism about where this season could go.

Crucial to that is the unity in the ranks. “It’s brilliant in there,” he said, gesturing to the away changing room at Salford.

Dennis celebrates his second and United's fourth at Salford (Image: Richard Parkes)

“It’s not a bad place to come to work every day. We’ve just got to keep that going. We need to keep the morale up and take that into the FA Cup and the league.

“As long as you’re in those top positions it means other teams have to dislodge you. We’ve just got to stay in there, but we know that there’s no point being there now if we’re not up there come the end of the season.”

Dennis is wise to preach the long game – but that does not mean days like Saturday cannot be enjoyed to the fullest, likewise his ripe goalscoring form.

“What’s not to enjoy about this?” he said. “I’m playing footy for a living in front of all these [fans].

“I just take each day as it comes and hopefully we’ll have even more days like this in the near future.

“It’s what you’re in football for. Scenes like that don’t come around often so you’ve just got to make the most of it. We’ve sent them home happy, and that’s brilliant.” 

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