Certainly wouldn’t say the goal was coming but the changes made a difference again. Derry better team for long spells but just didn’t take the couple of chances they created.
Mandriou made a difference off the bench. Goal was coming. Not sure about the defensive shape now with no real sitting midfielder.
Certainly wouldn’t say the goal was coming but the changes made a difference again. Derry better team for long spells but just didn’t take the couple of chances they created.
Huzzah! 1-0 up!
Gives a bit of false hope for the next few weeks if we can hang on here. Suddenly just two points behind Harps, and five off Drogheda.
Would be our first away win in the Premier since Oct 2014. And our first Premier win - home or away - in 27 games. We've picked up six draws in that time.
Ah it might have been a bit harsh but not utter rubbish. Until the the subs Rovers were generally lax, sloppy passing and not matching the work rate. But it all means nothing as Rovers picked up the points, Derry will feel they left that game behind and could or should have been ahead from just the 1st half.
Dundalk showed continued progress by winning coming from behind. Solid performance and played more to the strengths of our attacking players especially Hoban. Bohs showed some good moments and if they could put together more passages of play they would be fit to give anybody a tough outing, there must be serious frustration that they only play in fits and starts. I will take where we are after 15 games, third with the game in hand on the top two. Not that I think they will be caught but from a confidence point of view its good to be still just about in touch. Ifs and buts - but bar the sloppy conceding a 2 goal lead v UCD and a really poor outing at Drogheda we'd actually be considered still in a title race. Building some squad depth and cutting out that sort of inconsistency and we'd not be miles off being a solid European spot team.
I think tonight Ollie can be as negative as he likes and get away with it, thats a worrying result for them, with respect to UCD you'd have thought Harps could have at the very least bullied the ball in to the net for the points.
Hard to know what result would suit best in Sligo tomorrow, a draw or a Sligo win.
Last edited by Nesta99; 13/05/2022 at 9:06 PM.
Big result in Donegal confirmed.
Our first Premier win since the infamous 1-0/3-0 win over Bohs in July, which was our downfall in a way as it's the game Kearns was sent off in.
Our Premier record since then has been 26-0-6-20-16-74, which is Kilkenny levels of awful.
I’ll stick by my original comment as describing Byrne as strolling around and Towell as a non footballer isn’t a bit harsh but as I called it …. As for the second half our one bit of class made the difference …. I was impressed by Derry especially allowing for McElney and Duffy missing but most impressive was Lopes for 90 mins and Danny’s for the second half and 12 unbeaten and 30 from 36 points is some run of form by us
Finally I hope all LOI fans will join in congratulating our fan Joe Barnes on his 87th birthday and celebrating 81 years following Rovers and he still attends all home games and almost all away games… a true legend
Last edited by Calcio Jack; 13/05/2022 at 9:13 PM.
Awful awful rubbish from us,got exactly what we deserved….
I wouldnt call either non footballers but they werent working as hard as they needed to so could, with slight exaggeration, be called out for strolling around. If Derry had been a bit more composed in front of goal especially 1st half, 25 minutes of the 2nd and got their noses in front it would have been due to the way they were dominating midfield, but in general given too much time and space. I do think Derry didnt make it count before they tired and didnt have the bench to see out the draw as a minimum. I suppose you could say Rovers managed the game well, did a rope a dope job, but I doubt that was the tactical intention. The keeper should probably have done better than parrying the ball back out straight in to play. Derry have plenty of work to do eg they were getting frantic trying to equalise with time to play and over cooked it when they needed to keep the head and just play their game - what Rovers did and was a feature of Dundalk league winning sides.
I’ll admit to being a bit harsh on Byrne, but I thought he did work harder in the second half and Mandriou brought him to life. Had some lovely touches at times. I’ll maintain that he’s still not at his previous standard. I always defended his work rate in his previous spell and when he was around the Ireland squad. I though first half tonight highlighted his weaknesses. He can’t afford to cruise if he wants to be part of the Ireland squad again.
It will take a lot to convince me that Towell is a footballer. Couldn’t understand Rovers bringing him in and I can’t see what he adds to the team. He’s a liability shape wise and his quality on the ball is not enough to compensate for running around like a headless chicken. I watched him closely because I wanted to see if I was missing anything and his choices when making runs and moves were baffling. Constantly taking himself out of the game and running into dead ends rather than making himself an option to actually receive the ball.
I’ve just seen Dundalk's second goal tonight, brilliant team move starting with the keeper and ending up being walked into the net
Paaatrick's Agletic
Worst Champions ever! 😁.
Bradser is not helping himself with the last two games in a row picking the wrong side to start with, but I guess the luxury of that is having the quality to come off the bench.
Rovers were blessed not to be a couple down, and pretty much scored with our first effort on goal. The midfield was overrun by the harder working Derry team. Jack Byrne might be the most skilful player in the league but for me Pico is the best player in the league, and shows why he he didn't look remotely out of place in the AFCON tournament.
Derry were the best side to come to tallaght since Tallinn last year and look a proper side who will challenge Rovers.
Nice one the students, btw.
Byrne's been slowly getting there. Looked a bit off in the first half but I think Derry just did a great job of pressing him, often in numbers. He hasn't been short of running in other games.
I'd agree on Towell tonight but he's also had some games where he has provided some of the energy we lost when McEneff left and that brought a better balance to our midfield. Our current good run coincided with that, Danny finding form and Jack starting to find enough fitness to run for 90 mins.
It wasn't the midfield that was the issue for us for me. It was Sean Hoare playing LCB in Grace's absence. Every time he plays there we look sloppy going back to last season and especially Europe. No shock that we started to gain the upper hand when he moved to the right and Sean Kavanagh took his place on the left. Suddenly we had a better base to work from and things started to work further up. Watts and Danny also played a part of course.
Derry looked good and should have scored at least one but I was pretty confident when we changed the back line. Thought we looked the most likely to score from there but they wouldn't have been undeserving of a point. They will be right there until the end though as they are a good bit better than Pats or Sligo were last year.
Last edited by ontheotherhand; 13/05/2022 at 9:54 PM.
21 leagues and 25 cups.
Delighted with the Derry city performance, final pass at least 5 times from Derry left Rovers still in the game. The work rate from Derry was excellent and even though we lost theirs so many positives from that game.
We move on to another sold out Brandywell next week against Dundalk.
Honestly they've both had good games at RCB this year and we need both but Hoare would be my first choice there yes. We just need two equally good options at LCB so Hoare isn't used there again. Kavo starting to look like an option.
You can have Gannon back next season when you need the squad depth.
21 leagues and 25 cups.
worst performance by Rovers all season but we come away with 3 points so happy days. Im calling that as 2 points picked up to make up for the points we never should have dropped in sligo. 4 points clear is fantastic from where we were a few weeks ago
Good win for us tonight. Came from behind twice to run out 4-2 winners. 4 wins from 4 since Morris got the chop. Opposition hasn’t been exactly spectacularly but we’ve made an evident improvement since Morris was let go.
It was well worked and a good example of how effective Hoban can be with the right ball and his lay off. Likewise with the one Hoban scored himself. It was a shame to see the bottles and coins thrown at the Dundalk players after the Benson tap in! Maybe we should issue a club statement......
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