Bradley on beating the Blues and the March madness weather

Shamrock Rovers head coach Stephen Bradley was delighted to claim all three points after beating Limerick on Bank Holiday Monday at the Market's Field.

 

The match looked like it might fall foul of the weather for a second time this month but it went ahead with Graham Burke’s 75th penalty giving Rovers the win as they jumped above Dundalk and Waterford into second place in the table.

 

“When we saw the snow yesterday we were praying that the game would be on,” admitted Bradley exclusively to extratime.ie after the match.

 

“We didn’t want it off. You don’t want to be playing catch up with games. You want to get them out of the way and get points on the board.

 

“When we knew it was on we were delighted even though we knew the pitch would be bad. There were no excuses, we knew we needed to come here and win and we did.”

 



Bradley brought Limerick native Joel Coustrain, Sam Bone and Gary Shaw into his starting XI for his team’s fourth league game in 11 days.

 

“We have had a lot of games. It was about bringing Joel, Sam and Gary in as Greg [Bolger] was only back from injury.

 

“He played his first game back on Friday so he was never going to play two games in such a short space of time.

 



“For Gary and Joel is was about freshness that they could bring to the team. We have said we will use our squad. I believe the quality is there. We’ve done that and will continue to do that.”

 

It was another clean sheet for the Hoops – their fourth of the season – and they have only conceded two goals in their last six league fixtures.

 

The Limerick Chairman Pat O’Sullivan has been making presentations to the travelling supporters in Markets Field this season in front of the away section ahead of kick off. There he handed a Treaty Stone plaque to Rovers representatives before the game began.

 

With 15 minutes to go in the match, Limerick player Shaun Kelly handed Rovers the chance to win the game from the penalty spot by taking down Ronan Finn in front of the travelling Rovers support.

 

Graham Burke made no mistake from the penalty spot, scoring his sixth goal of the season.

 

“I thought we fully deserved the win. We are delighted because we completely controlled the game.

 

“Considering how bad the pitch is I think we passed the ball really well.”

 

The one negative aspect for Rovers was their first red card of the season. Discipline was an issue last year when they received a whopping ten sendings-off.

 

Sean Kavanagh seemed to kick out at Billy Dennehy with seven minutes remaining and he received his marching orders from referee Graham Kelly.

 

“I spoke to the ref and he said he had a little kick off the ball. I spoke to their player and our and there was nothing in it both of them said.

 

“Hopefully the ref's report helps Sean out as he is not that type of player. I thought some of Sean’s passing was unbelievable in the first half.”

 

It means that Kavanagh will miss Rovers third trip to Munster in a dozen days this coming Friday.

 

With Cork City not in league action this weekend, Rovers can go top if they beat Waterford, who have won all three home games so far this season, at the RSC.

 

“Waterford have started well, as you would expect as they have signed a lot of players and spent a lot of money,” said Bradley.

 

“You expect them to be up there and they are so far. I expect the way we are playing and the way we are attacking teams, we can cause them problems like we did down in Cork and as we did here.

 

“I think we will be the same on Friday as we will cause every team problems.”

    About Macdara Ferris

    Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile