Shamrock Rovers took another important step towards what looks increasingly likely to be their first league title since 1994 on Friday night when they dispatched Sligo Rovers 1-0 at Tallaght Stadium. But, as Michael O’Neill has admitted after the game, the win was a hard earned one.

“It was very hard. We knew it would be. We knew Sligo would come and press us and make life difficult for us. They’re a good team with good energy and we played into their hands, which we have done typically against Sligo which is a bit of a mystery. We’ve emphasised to the players time and time again how Sligo will come and play against us and yet we continue to create our own problems.”

“The way we started the game, we invited pressure and we invited them onto us. And then, suddenly, you’re having to defend the ball on the edge of your own box. Thankfully we got to half time at 0-0, we were probably slightly fortunate for that to be the case, although we had two good chances ourselves, and then in the second half we were a lot better.”

Apart from the difficulty his team experienced in extracting the three points O’Neill had a lot to be happy about, in particular a stunning goal from winger Billy Dennehy, a player who is really starting to blossom at Tallaght following his move from Cork City at the start of the season.

“It was a fantastic goal. Billy’s in a rich vein of form at the moment. He looks extremely strong and quick and he’s hitting the net on a regular basis now. And that was one to savour.”

Nor was Dennehy the only wide player to earn O’Neill’s praise. Sean O’Connor, so often a peripheral player at Tallaght this season, came on for the injured Robert Bayly just before half time and, in the second half, looked like a player reborn.

“Sean was great”, said O’Neill. “You know, he’s had a frustrating time of it. There’s a lot of options in wide areas with Paddy (Kavanagh) and Billy (Dennehy) and Tommy Stewart. But we needed Sean tonight and I was delighted with him. He came in and he was excellent for us.”

There was also a warm response from the Hoops boss to the manner in which the crowd had got behind their team. “Yeah, we need the supporters, you know. It can be difficult for players sometimes, even though the crowd’s there, if it’s quiet and you hear, you know, some of the more negative stuff.”

“The supporters obviously get frustrated with the team when things aren’t going well, and you have to expect that, but I thought in the second half they were huge for us and the team fed off the energy that they gave us. We needed that tonight to be honest. As I say, we weren’t at our best but we needed that tonight.”

Finally, O’Neill faced up to the fact that his side are rapidly becoming the odds on favourites to lift this years title. “Yeah, we’re delighted to be where we are. We’re not talking about it a lot, we look to the next game and that’s our focus. We look at Pat’s now. We’ve put fourteen points between us and Sligo and that would be an awful lot to make up over eight games. We can put ten points between ourselves and Pats next week and that would an awful lot to make up, again, over seven games. So that’s the way we’ll approach it, we just have to continue to maintain the gap and if the opportunity arises to increase it. Then hopefully we’ll manage to take it."