Richmond Park to host St Pat’s and Rovers in crunch encounter

SHAMROCK Rovers are to travel to Richmond Park this Friday evening as they take on St Patrick’s Athletic with a possible place at the top of the table at stake.

Both sides suffered somewhat frustrating experiences over the past weekend with Shamrock Rovers failing to get all three points away to bottom placed Waterford while St Pats found themselves defeated 2-0 in Oriel Park, after defeating the Lilywhites 4-0 at Richmond just a few weeks earlier.

That aside the two teams have performed extremely well so far this season with Pats in particular impressing with their goal scoring capabilities.

The side has scored the joint highest number of goals in the league alongside Dundalk with 18 goals in 10 matches.

Last year  this appeared to be a major weakness for the side as aside from Mason Melia there seemed to be no obvious name capable of putting the ball in the back of the net.

Ryan Edmonson is among the highest goalscorers in the league with four to his name currently while Romal Palmer has managed three.

Kian Leavy and Aidan Keena as well as Luke Turner are all sitting on two goals each ensuring that the spread is less focused on one individual player this year and the entire team is a goalscoring threat.

Some have said that Rovers have had a slow start this year, despite that they sit in third place just one point behind St Pats and Bohemians.

They also have lost just one game so far, that being a derby day defeat in Dalymount a few weeks ago

The side has seen the introduction of new talent come in as well as the conitnued excellence of reliable performers such as Pico Lopes and Graham Burke, both of whom found themselves on the scoresheet last Monday evening.

Lopes interestingly finds himself the highest goalscorer for the club in the league at the moment with three strikes to his name, an impressive achievement for a centre back.

Burke sits one behind on two goals alongside Michael Noonan and Danny Grant. After scoring two in his last two games, including his 100th competitive goal in a Rovers jersey, manager Stephen Bradley commented on his importance to the team and overall quality.

“He’s special. When it’s all said and done and he decides to put on the slippers, he’s going to be up there at the top with the greats who have played in the league.

“And certainly the greats who have ever played for this club. He’s a special, unique talent and we’re very, very lucky to have him.

“You usually don’t get the credit that you really deserve when you’re playing and that’s quite normal.

‘That’s when he retires, that he’ll be spoken about and the like he should be.”

Burke will be hoping to add goal 101 to his tally in Richmond Park on Friday night.

It is worth noting that the two sides have played each other once already this season with Rovers inflicting Pat’s only defeat prior to the recent game against Dunalk, a 2-0 scoreline in Tallaght Stadium.

Still as we have seen in the two fixtures between Dundalk and Pats, the result of one game does not dictate how the other fixture will go and the Saints will be looking to utilise that impressive firepower on Friday night and stake their claim at the top of the table.