QuoteI'm going to go out on a limb and say Rovers will play ****e, someone will start a fight yet we'll still somehow manage to score an undeserved equaliser in injury time, giving us false hope that our season won't be another massive disappointment.
Premier Division:
FRIDAY -
Bray Wanderers v Saint Patrick's Ath
Cork City v Waterford FC
Sligo Rovers v Derry City
Shamrock Rovers v Dundalk FC - 8PM
SATURDAY -
Limerick FC v Bohemian FC - 6.30PM
MONDAY -
Sligo Rovers v Cork City
Waterford FC v Saint Patrick's Ath.
Shamrock Rovers v Bray Wanderers - 8PM
TUESDAY -
Dundalk FC v Limerick FC
Bohemian FC v Derry City
First Division:
FRIDAY -
Cabinteeley FC v Wexford FC
Drogheda United v Finn Harps
Galway United v Athlone Town
UCDAFC v Shelbourne FC
SATURDAY -
Longford Town v Cobh Ramblers - 7.30PM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OFFICIALS : http://www.extratime.ie/articles/204...nted---week-2/
SUSPENSIONS : http://www.extratime.ie/articles/204...list---week-2/
COUPON : https://www.paddypower.com/football/...first-division
https://www.paddypower.com/football/...emier-division
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Rovers will play ****e, someone will start a fight yet we'll still somehow manage to score an undeserved equaliser in injury time, giving us false hope that our season won't be another massive disappointment.
I doubt there is a much better time (bar last Friday) for Rovers to expect a result against Dundalk. A few injuries still, 10 new signings some with little or no preseason, one at the club a few days, 8 players a week or 2 after having a nasty virus, centre defence partnership not established yet, probable first choice striker with damn all minutes game time since August, players not bothered by sickness/injury/lack of match fitness showing patchy form. Pressure on the side for a perfromance never mind the result. 1st game at home so big suppot. Rovers have had a steady preseason with little disruption, the result last week was in a derby game that is always competative and irritating rather than a catastrophe so players confidence shouldnt be knocked by that. Keep 11 men on the pitch and Rovers are clear favourites!
I'll have you know we've kept 11 men on the pitch for a full 90 minutes this season so our disciplinary problems are over!
Clarke still suspended 4 or 5 new starters .. a disgruntled crowd, pressure on...I'd take a draw now to be honest.Originally Posted by Nesta99
If Ezekiel uttered these words there'd be nothing but scorn! ;p
I meant it in the context of if the match wasn't going well. Like the disgruntled crowd at your bray match. Not in a long term type way just normal home pressure
I think given the make up of both squads and the players missing from Dundaks spine makes Rovers favourites. I was surprised to see the odds were something like 13/5 the other day.
I suspect Rovers will dominate for 70 minutes but only lead 1-0 or 2-1 or something similar. Dundalk will get a couple of chances late on, and the question is whether they can score one or two.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
At this point we don't know who will be missing for Dundalk other than O'Donnell, and Mountney. Hoare is probably out (he gave himself a chance of being fit in an interview earlier this week).
There are question marks over the well-being post-flu and/or the match fitness of a number of players including Brian Gartland and Karolis Chvedukas who were named checked on DFC website 'Team News'.
If all five are out, it will leave us down to the bare bones with only 19 senior players available for selection.
Roughly 11 of whom cover two positions.
It look like we will have to play with a fly goalkeeper then
Nonsense
Gannon will be right full, Poynton can play there
Gartland, Folan, Massey, Cleary, Shields (if needed) can all play CB
Jarvis, Massey van play left full
Poynton, Shields, Chvedukas, McGrath, Benson, Adorjan can all play midfeild
Duffy, Mc Grath, Adorjan, Benson, Connolly, Murray can all play out wide
Duffy, McGrath, Adorjan, Benson, Murray can all play number 10.
Byrne, Tagbajumi, Murray Hoban can all play up front
John Fallon shows his anti-Rovers obsession in this article on Rovers in The Times.
I trust that the usual suspects will heap their scorn on him
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b...529rgkrtf?t=ieBradley needs to start making progress at Shamrock Rovers
John Fallon
February 23 2018, 12:01am, The Times
Late on Wednesday night, in his role of RTÉ pundit, Damien Duff didn’t equivocate when supplying a frank assessment of his former mentor José Mourinho’s tenure at Manchester United but closer to home there is a tenancy that is also attracting its share of analysis.
Stephen Bradley is certainly no Mourinho, yet the tradition and fanbase of Shamrock Rovers make them Ireland’s version of United.
Both managers are in their second full season at the helm and while the Portuguese realises his record of 25 trophies and €350 million net transfer-market spend at a club carries the burden of expectation, Bradley must also accept that second is considered insufficient.
Compounding the challenge for the 33-year-old is the fact that third is their more likely placing in the League of Ireland order and there is no guarantee it will wash.
Tonight’s visit of Dundalk, only their second game of the season, is already been deemed a match that they cannot lose.
Granted, rookie managers tend to be afforded some slack, but last week’s capitulation in the 3-1 defeat by Bohemians, coupled with the party line circulating from Tallaght, threaten to make this a testing season for the local manager raised in nearby Fettercairn.
“We have to understand where we are,” Bradley said last week. “John Caulfield, Stephen Kenny and Kenny Shiels have been there four or five seasons with their squads.”
Not true. Kenny did take over at Dundalk for the 2013 season, Caulfield returned to Cork a year later but the first game of Shiels era at Derry came in March 2016. That is just four months before Bradley was installed as caretaker manager at Rovers in succession to the sacked Pat Fenlon.
“We just need to recognise that last year we made great progress and this year we need to try and better that again,” the Rovers manager said. “That just means closing the points gap on Cork and Derry because they’re ahead of the rest and we’ve to try fight and make it hard for them.”
Progress? It was the word Duff used in referencing Mourinho — contending that there had been none — and there is little evidence to indicate that the team for whom he is on the backroom staff have either.
At the end of his first, albeit half, season, Bradley’s side finished fourth, a full 22 points adrift of champions Dundalk.
Last year, having recruited heavily in the off-season, they leapfrogged Derry into third spot.
However, the gap on the top two remained unchanged.
Cork enjoyed that 22-point buffer and Dundalk, like the Leesiders in the previous season, accumulated 15 points more. This was at the end of a campaign in which reducing the deficit constituted their main target.
Despite this being early days, it is perhaps natural for Bradley to be less bullish on the topic of catching the trailblazers, especially after many of the top-level players that he wanted to enlist opted against moving.
Even the restrained Kenny seemed to take satisfaction by claiming his rivals “threw the kitchen sink” at attempting to lure his right back, Sean Gannon, to Dublin recently, along with Brian Gartland, the centre back.
The ploy had certainly worked 12 months previously when Ronan Finn, another of their mainstays in the surge to the Europa League group stage, made the switch but other, riskier captures disappointed.
For example, two more arrivals from Dundalk, Darren Meenan and Michael O’Connor, are not even in this year’s squad, while Ryan Connolly wasn’t retained after a year.
The Mayo man was presented as one of the “four young captains” on the same day last year but Daniel Devine departed by mutual consent midway through the season and Paul Corry’s injury problems eventually forced him to retire.
Only Roberto Lopes remains of that quartet and he will need to deliver an improved display at centre back to that shown against his former club Bohemians seven days ago.
He wasn’t alone in culpability at Dalymount Park, as the two full backs, Ethan Boyle and Ally Gilchrist, endured challenging debuts.
New signing Sean Kavanagh, in spite of his lack of first-team action, may replace Gilchrist at left back tonight but questions surrounding the decision to ditch Simon Madden, the right back, in the off-season for 21-year-old Boyle, a former Finn Harps midfielder, will linger for far longer. Fans’ favourite Madden was described by his manager as the best right back in the league only 12 months earlier when Cork starting sniffing around him.
Regardless of the personnel, what seemed most disconcerting on the opening night was the one-dimensional tactics adopted against a part-time Bohemians outfit. Aiming to exploit full backs by firing long balls in behind can have merit, only it was clearly ineffective from early in the game.
Rovers, too, are seen by the Football Association of Ireland as instrumental to its strategy of introducing a technically-based programme across the new under-age national leagues.
Since lifelong fan, Ray Wilson, and Pepper Group’s Seumas Dawes invested in the club two years ago to the tune of €1.5 million, much of the emphasis has centred on developing home-produced talent at their training ground in Kingswood and the governing body chipped in themselves with a €180,000 grant towards the facility’s construction costs in September.
Their endeavours to bring about change were highlighted by a social-media campaign during the downtime of Christmas, showing video clips of children exhibiting their skills around the streets of Dublin.
The “Football Loves Us” hashtag went global, helped by the presence in the footage of Duff, the under-15 squad head coach.
Now that definitely represented an example of progress.
Last edited by Ezeikial; 23/02/2018 at 10:34 AM. Reason: deleting photo captions
Probably no point in trying to educate El-Pietro further. It has already been explained to him at great length and he appears either unwilling or unable to understand.
Hubris can do that
Last edited by Ezeikial; 23/02/2018 at 10:28 AM. Reason: softening the tone
Was just up in Oriel, Less than 100 of the 750 tickets Rovers gave us. Great to see
Hope everyone has a **** before entering the stadium
Is the answer "wash"?
LOL - that gave me a chuckle
Might be needed after leaving the ground if Rovers continue their close the toilet policy
I've promised myself that win lose or draw tonight I'm going to try to keep a bit of perspective on being either 6 5 or 3 points behind probably cork with 34 games to go doesn't mean the seaso n is over... .
No guarantee we win tonight. Waterford look a good side and we are going to have to figure out what to do without Cummins. Very likely Sheppard starts up front and that hasn't worked for us in recent years.
I'd be amazed (and delighted) if Cork do not win easily tonight
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