Stephen Bradley: 'We never said we'd challenge for the title - we actually said we couldn't'

Stephen Bradley played down expectations for Shamrock Rovers' season after the Hoops scraped a 1-0 win over Sligo Rovers at Tallaght Stadium on Friday night.

Dan Carr's goal on the hour was enough for Rovers to take all three points from a game in which they were largely second best on their own turf.

The Hoops never really got going and were outplayed for large periods by a Sligo side that have struggled for consistency in the first round of games.

The Bit o' Red emerged with credit from their 2-0 defeat at home to Dundalk last week, while the Hoops were still smarting from their narrow loss in Waterford.

They eked out the win in the end thanks to a moment of magic from Sean Kavanagh, who crossed for Carr to finish at the back post, but Bradley reiterated that they have a long way to go.

“We never said we'd challenge for the title,” Bradley told extratime.ie.

“We actually said that we couldn't. We believe we need time to catch Dundalk and Cork and nothing's changed there.

“I think it's everyone outside saying they want us to challenge or expect us to challenge. We've never said we'll challenge Dundalk and Cork this year.

“We finished a lot of points behind them last year. It takes time to make that up.”

Rovers – who were without Trevor Clarke after the left-back suffered a season-ending knee ligament injury – struggled from the off against a confident visiting side.

Neither side created much in the opening period but Sligo had the best of the action, with former Liverpool striker Adam Morgan a thorn in the side of centre-half Lee Grace.

The second half was more even as Rovers created more in the final third, but Bradley was unhappy at the manner of the performance in front of their home fans.

“Not our best performance. We know that. We had patches where we played OK but overall, it's probably our worst performance outside Bohs.

“We didn't do much for most of the game, to be honest with you. It was the worst we've been here in terms of our play, but we showed a different side of our play to go and win 1-0.

“Credit to the players, they dug in and second half was little bit better.”