Shamrock Rovers star Lee Grace will have a key role to play for Shamrock Rovers in Gibraltar this evening.
“It’ll be a tough tie’ in Gibraltar
Shamrock Rovers defender Lee Grace spoke about the challenge that awaits them this evening in Gibraltar.
The Hoops are set to take on St Joseph’s in the second round of the UEFA Conference League with the return leg set for Tallaght next Thursday.
Having played Shelbourne in last year’s edition of the tournament, Grace gave his opinion on the quality of opposition.
“It wasn’t straightforward (for Shels). Every team in this competition is there on merit. It’s Europe, you’re going to have good teams, they are going to have threats going forward but we feel like we can hurt them the other way.
“As long as we’re defensively solid we should be alright.
“It will be tough, the conditions too will be fairly hot so we’re going to have to manage it.
“It’ll be a tough tie but one hopefully we can get over.”
Rovers unexpectedly found themselves receiving a bye to the second round of qualification thanks to misfortunes for Drogheda United’s ownership rendering them expelled from the competition.
Grace commented on the positives and the drawback of not playing the first round.
“There’s two sides to it I think, you’re happy obviously miss a round. No chance of you going out but on the flip side you’d like to play the first round and get a feel for it.
“Obviously banking you go through. We’re ready. We’ve had the experience down through the years of playing in Europe so another week or two of waiting isn’t too much. We’ll be ready regardless.”
The matches will be coming quickly now with limited turnaround between games. Grace spoke on the mentality needed to thrive with such a schedule.
“As you go through the rounds in Europe a lot of teams in a similar way. We just look after ourselves, make sure we’re doing our own jobs right and then slight tweaks for each team. We’re just focusing on ourselves and doing the job right.”
As the years go on the experience does tell on how to manage games especially if you’re up against it.
‘As i said earlier as well you need a bit of freshness as well with the young lads. The young lads going out for the first time are hungry and it’s all new to them so they are kinda going out there fearless. Just up for us to row in behind them and guide them in the right direction.”
