Stephen Bradley’s Shamrock Rovers side take on league champions Shelbourne in Tallaght Stadium on Friday evneing
‘There’s no bigger games’ Rovers boss Bradley on Shels match
SHAMROCK Rovers make a return to action on Friday night when they take on Airtricity League champions Shelbourne at Tallaght Stadium.
This will be the first round of fixtures since the mid-season break. Shelbourne coach Damien Duff was highly critical of the break, famously labelling it “a week on the gargle”.
Rovers boss Stephen Bradley does not share Duff’s view.
“I think players are completely different from ten, fifteen or twenty years ago. That’s a given.
‘Players are in incredible shape and always are all year round. Very rarely do you get a player coming back for pre-season really out of shape. It’s very rare.
‘I trust my players 100%, when I give them time off I trust that they will enjoy themselves, that’s fine, but I trust that they will come back and they’re ready to work”.
While the Irish public will view this match as among the biggest of the season, Bradley remained adamant that this game and the following match on Monday evening against second place Drogheda United were just like any other.
“There’s no bigger games. At this club there’s no bigger games. That’s not how we operate. It’s never how we operate, and we won’t do that.
‘The three points on offer on Friday, Monday, next Friday, the Monday after are all the same.
‘No difference. You don’t get any more for beating Shels or beating Drogheda. It’s irrelevant.
‘We play friendlies here and we want to win them. There’s no bigger games, that’s not how this club works and that’s not how this team works.”
Rovers star man Graham Burke echoed this sentiment with a similarly self-minded approach when asked for his opinion on the upcoming game with Shelbourne.
“I think for us we only concentrate on ourselves. We come into the season every year with our goals and what we want them to be and we concentrate on what we do.
‘We don’t really look at what’s going on elsewhere. Obviously Shels had a fantastic season last year, won the league and deservedly so, credit to them but we’re concentrating on ourselves.”
