Rovers bank €133k after Watts’ late goal in Tallaght

Dylan Watts’ injury time header rescued a point for Shamrock Rovers in their opening UEFA Conference League fixture against Apoel Nicosia and also secured €133,000 in prize money for their efforts.

The €133,000 will be added to a pot of around €4 million which the club have earned through their European campaign so far this year, and if Stephen Bradley’s side manage a victory in any of their five remaining games in the league stage they will receive a bonus €400,000.

Speaking of financial figures, according to transfermarkt, Apoel Nicosia have a squad worth up to €14.85 million, three times Rovers squad value of €4.28 million, making the draw in Tallaght all the more impressive.

With this in mind, Stephen Bradley set his side up to directly nullify Apoel Nicosia in the first half, which worked, but it did prevent Rovers from putting their own attacking stamp on the game as they saw just 36% of the ball in the opening half.

Brazilian winger Marquinhos was at the heart of anything the Cypriot side managed to create, and he was involved in the key moment of the match as he cleverly got in behind Neil Farrugia who pulled him back and in doing so received his second yellow card of the game, having been booked in the first half for some afters with an Apoel player.

Tallaght Stadium looking in great shape before Shamrock Rovers European match last night

The opening goal followed soon after as a result of a sustained period of pressure from the visitors, who opened the scoring through Konstantinos Laifis after he towered over Daniel Cleary to head home from a corner.

Considering Apoel’s experience and pedigree in Europe over the last number of years, you would of expected the Cypriot champions to go on and kill the game with the extra man and lead they now possessed.

However, this wasn’t the case as Stephen Bradley’s side showed tremendous maturity to stay in the game and hope for one last chance to rescue a point.

That chance would come in the 91st minute as substitute Jack Byrne’s expert corner delivery found fellow sub-Dylan Watts who powered his header past Vid Belec in the Apoel goal.

In the context of the league stage with five games remaining, his goal could prove to be a big one come the end of the campaign.

The big games don’t stop for Rovers, as they turn their attentions from Europe back to their title fight when they host Damien Duff’s Shelbourne on Sunday.