Home comforts for Shamrock Rovers as title party looms for Stephen Bradley

Shamrock Rovers' manager Stephen Bradley

Aidan Fitzmaurice

October 29 2021 02:30 AM

Stephen Bradley wants his Shamrock Rovers side to make the most of home advantage tonight and secure the 2021 title in front of their own supporters.

Second-placed St Patrick’s Athletic have already admitted that they realistically can’t catch Rovers to deny the Hoops a second successive title, and no matter how the Saints fare this evening, a win for Rovers at home to Finn Harps will guarantee them their crown, although there will be no trophy presentation tonight.

Last year, Rovers weren’t even in action when the league was secured as that happened when their challengers Bohemians lost to Finn Harps, while previous titles were secured away to Bray Wanderers (2010) and UCD (2011).

The Hoops expect a crowd well above the 5,000 mark tonight, their biggest gate since the pre-Covid win over Dundalk and Bradley is keen to put on a show for those fans.

“It will be more special as this will be the first time that the club will get to do it, win the league at home, since 1993/94, in front of the home fans and this gives us a great opportunity to do that. It will be special, in front of family and friends, hopefully we can get over the line,” says the Rovers boss.

“It’s great for everyone, involved in football or not, to get back to some sort of normality, we could have 7,000 or 7,500 there and by all accounts it’s heading that way, if we get that crowd it’s up to us to make it special.”

Harps, fighting to get above their closest rivals in the relegation battle (Dundalk and Waterford), beat Rovers at home last month and drew on their last visit to Tallaght and Bradley knows it may not go all their own way.

“There is every chance we could start slowly, or they could start really well – that’s football,” he added. “It won’t affect the focus or the mindset of the players because we have played so many games.

We have worked too hard to allow that to happen.”

Meanwhile, Keith Long has demanded an improvement from his players ahead of their test in Derry. “We were beaten far too easily by Waterford. That has happened too often this season,” Long said.

“There have been lots of frustrations this year – our defending has not been good enough. We are a good side when we play with high energy and are aggressive.

“But we were none of those things on Monday and we need to improve if we are to get a result in Derry.”