Bogey sides and favoured opponents

[culloty82]

Admittedly, with Kerry the small sample helps in discerning both, but Bray are the sole club against whom the Kingdom have yet to pick up a single point over two successive league seasons (P5, W0 D0 L5) which disqualifies Galway from contention here. By contrast, having lost our first two encounters with Cobh, one cup win and three draws make the record against the Rams most positive. Perhaps limiting the search to the last two seasons will ease with stat-crunching for other clubs.

[Nesta99]

A lot of it is perception over the years but UCD and to a lesser extenr Drogheda have always seemed to pinch results agaisnt better Dundalk sides. Of course this season every side is a bogey side for us. Some Rovers fans believe that all teams raise their games just against them over 50 odd years - curretly they are the team to beat so sides will treat games against champions like cup games. For a significant spell Bohs had the Dublin Derby bragging rights but over its total history Id say Rovers have had the better results. St Pats and any side in the cup until a few years ago, was always a banana skin. Harps was never fun to go to, though no matter how poor Derry were they generally managed to beat Harps against the run of play or form guide. Waterford v Dundalk in play-offs even with FAI CEOs sticking their oar in. Gortakeegan was a graveyard for Dundalk sides of varying standards too. There were more than usual league titles settled in Oriel even when Dundalk were not in a title race, against the favourites, during the 90's so it wasnt a venue that any club were that happy about needing to go to and win on the last day.

But as said the actual stats probably dont really match up with who are percieved as bogey sides and visa versa

[sbgawa]

Galway I think are at 19 losses in a row against us which is almost statistically impossible. That being said they are our next home match and no doubt I've jinxed it. To put it into mathematical context if you said rovers had a 75% chance of winning each match (home and away combined) rovers winning 19 in a row has a probability of 0.004%

[Another Bohemia]

Harps was always a tough fixture for Bohs when Harps were managed by Ollie Horgan. In fact I'd go as far as to say the start of Longs downfall as Bohs manager was the first game of the 21 season. On paper the 21 season seems good, reaching the cup final & good run in europe but that game against harps specifically was decided by an awful defensive error that became a regular occurrence for the rest of Longs tenure as manager and was a big contributor in our frankly poor league performance that year.

[joey B]

Perception would always have been Derry and with good reason ,we in fact have a much worse record against Cork over the last 25 plus years,1 win in the last 40 I think I counted ! Recently like over the last decade UCD have been a pain aswell ,I think we’ve 1 win in the last 12 meetings against them ,I can’t think of too many favoured opponents,I suppose Limerick have bad memories against us,Bohs seemed to complain more than most about coming to Ballybofey aswell weather that was true in reality I’m not sure!

[outspoken]

Longford could never beat Cabinteely. We had outrageous unbeaten records against Wexford and Athlone for many years as well. Went almost a full decade without losing to Athlone in any sort of game including friendlies

[ger121]

Derry. Felt like at one stage,maybe 2-3 years ago , that we had not beaten them in years.

[brendy_éire]

Derry. Felt like at one stage,maybe 2-3 years ago , that we had not beaten them in years.

Did we go something stupid like 11 wins in a row in Dalymount? We always put it down the big pitch.
On the bogey teams, Drogheda and Cork were ours. Drogheda probably still are, along with Sligo away. Longford back in the day, and UCD at home had a cracking record against us.

[total hoofball]

Rovers definitely had developed bogey hold over Shels until our win Tolka ls this season in February

In our First Division years those long away trips to Cobh definitely stood out to me that part-time players struggled with it, just the 3 wins out of 15 matches at St. Colman's Park between 2007-2021. Cabinteely home and away also stood out as a bogey side for Shels for a period between 2017-2019 with just 1 win against them in a 9 game stretch

[pineapple stu]

A lot of it is perception over the years but UCD have always seemed to pinch results agaisnt better Dundalk sides.
3 draws in 20 games between 2013 and 2022! I'd have Dundalk as one of our bogey teams.

Or maybe ye were just better than us... Come to think of it, I think our bogey sides are Premier Division teams and our favoured opponents are First Division sides.

We did at least end an 18-match losing streak against Rovers in September, and Sligo didn't win a league or FAI Cup tie in Belfield between 1982 and 2006 (21 games all told). I still think of that as being relatively recent!

[WoodquayBoy]

Galway I think are at 19 losses in a row against us which is almost statistically impossible. That being said they are our next home match and no doubt I've jinxed it. To put it into mathematical context if you said rovers had a 75% chance of winning each match (home and away combined) rovers winning 19 in a row has a probability of 0.004%

What’s the probability for 20 in a row, as I can’t see us getting a thing out of our trip up there next week.

[ger121]

Did we go something stupid like 11 wins in a row in Dalymount? We always put it down the big pitch.
On the bogey teams, Drogheda and Cork were ours. Drogheda probably still are, along with Sligo away. Longford back in the day, and UCD at home had a cracking record against us.

Would have to check that one but it would not surprise me. We did not win up in the Brandywell for years.

[placid casual]

Drogheda have been Rovers bogey side during the Bradley era I think.

[WeAreRovers]

A lot of it is perception over the years but UCD and to a lesser extenr Drogheda have always seemed to pinch results agaisnt better Dundalk sides. Of course this season every side is a bogey side for us. Some Rovers fans believe that all teams raise their games just against them over 50 odd years - curretly they are the team to beat so sides will treat games against champions like cup games. For a significant spell Bohs had the Dublin Derby bragging rights but over its total history Id say Rovers have had the better results. St Pats and any side in the cup until a few years ago, was always a banana skin. Harps was never fun to go to, though no matter how poor Derry were they generally managed to beat Harps against the run of play or form guide. Waterford v Dundalk in play-offs even with FAI CEOs sticking their oar in. Gortakeegan was a graveyard for Dundalk sides of varying standards too. There were more than usual league titles settled in Oriel even when Dundalk were not in a title race, against the favourites, during the 90's so it wasnt a venue that any club were that happy about needing to go to and win on the last day.

But as said the actual stats probably dont really match up with who are percieved as bogey sides and visa versa

It's definitely perception rather than fact - Rovers have beaten Bohs more than any other side in our history. Even in the last 20 years, when Bohs had a relatively good time of it in the derby, Rovers have won more.

[2 Year Contract]

Pats have a stinking record in Tallaght in recent years, with the last win there being in early 2016. The Brandywell has also been a bogey trip, I think a late season win in 2019 is the only win there since 2015 (aside from beating them on penalties in the cup last season)

[brendy_éire]

Would have to check that one but it would not surprise me. We did not win up in the Brandywell for years.

Ended in 2018. We had 10 wins in a row against Bohs home and away, and 10 wins in a row at Dalymount. Mad really.

[oriel]

Bogey teams for us this season are Rovers / Galway / Sligo / Pats (a) / Waterford / Shels / Drogs / Derry / Pats (h) and Bohs

[sbgawa]

Drogheda have been Rovers bogey side during the Bradley era I think.

Yep 100%

[ontheotherhand]

Drogheda have definitely been our bogey side in recent years. Shels are a bit like an evolved Drogheda so they may take that mantle. Both sides rarely lose their shape and can hit you on the break which is how to beat us. Unless you're from the continent of course. Then you can beat us any which way you please.

I enjoy games against bohs for the atmosphere and fairly good chance of a win but if it was a case of picking a side to play to secure a cup or league it'd have to be Galway. Which of course would be the time they beat us.

[Shearer]

Treaty failed to beat Galway United in 11 attempts.

Otherwise we have cruised past Longford Town with just one loss in eight meetings.

[JC_GUFC]

Galway I think are at 19 losses in a row against us which is almost statistically impossible. That being said they are our next home match and no doubt I've jinxed it. To put it into mathematical context if you said rovers had a 75% chance of winning each match (home and away combined) rovers winning 19 in a row has a probability of 0.004%

It’s actually 21 defeats in a row.

Also Galway United have never finished above Rovers in the league in our history. Rovers were Champions in seasons we finished 2nd and 3rd and even when they were relegated we were in Division 1 and finished below them! Add to that, after beating Bohs last weekend, Rovers are the only side our Women’s team have failed to beat!

Waterford are the only Premier Division side we have a winning record against and we have a desperate away record against some teams, particularly Sligo and Dundalk.

More recently Longford have proved a thorn in our side, being the only team to beat us in the league last season. They also beat us on the opening day of the 2014 season, our return to LoI.

[thebronze14]

Been to Dundalk about 7 times, seen us score once. Since beating UCD in a playoff in 2015 I've seen us fail miserably there at least 6 times. Usually they have a man sent off to make it worse. Athlone is a new one for misery. 3 awful defeats there when we were favourites. Used to be Derry but our recent record isn't as bad as it was

[El-Pietro]

Did we go something stupid like 11 wins in a row in Dalymount? We always put it down the big pitch.
On the bogey teams, Drogheda and Cork were ours. Drogheda probably still are, along with Sligo away. Longford back in the day, and UCD at home had a cracking record against us.
I'm pretty sure every game we've ever played against Derry finished 1-1 with Denis Behan scoring for us.

[brendy_éire]

I'm pretty sure every game we've ever played against Derry finished 1-1 with Denis Behan scoring for us.

Ah yeah, forgot about all those 1-1 draws. We really should have signed Behan just to stop him scoring against us.

[osarusan]

F**kin Harps.

[Neish]

Bray seemed to be a bit of a bogey team for Harps for a long time but not as much last few years, UCD would probably be one now and of course Derry although our record against them was relatively decent during the Ollie years

[A N Mouse]

I think Dalymount has always felt like a happy hunting ground, even ignoring those big streaks we seem to do ok there. Even when Pat the rat was in charge there I think bohs can point to the cup final, on penalties, but few enough other wins. I think their purple patch against us was early noughties.