Monday evening’s match in Tallaght Stadium kicks off at 7.45 pm to accommodate TV coverage on Virgin Media Three. Tickets are still available.

With Friday’s game against Drogheda postponed due to the weather, ordinarily, you might be a bit disappointed at missing a fixture, but given the injuries and a big game against Derry on Monday, were you maybe a bit less concerned about the Drogheda game being off?

“We wanted to play the game, there’s no doubt about that. This team is at its best when it’s playing games regularly so we wanted to play. But nobody could do anything, the weather’s the weather. I saw the pitch on Friday morning and it was very heavy so it was clear from early on there was no way the game was going to go ahead. So I think it was the right decision all around.”

Is there much disruption to training and preparation for games when something like that happens?

Once we got the news that the game was off we went out to the indoor facility at Abbotstown and trained which was brilliant. The players got a good work day in and it keeps up their levels for Monday night.

Derry have quality all over the pitch and with the addition of Pat Hoban, what can we expect tomorrow?

It will be another difficult game. They’ve been a good team; they’ve invested heavily in the last two years in their group and when you sign someone like Patrick Hoban you obviously bring goals to the team so we know it’s going to be a difficult game but I feel we’re in a good place. You look at the last hour of last week, we know what we need to improve on, but if we bring that standard into the game I think we’ll be fine.

You said prior to the postponed game against Drogheda that we were missing some top players, does that give you a chance to maybe bring some Academy lads into the squad for some experience?

We’re obviously down a few bodies, but that’s fine, that’s football. We have young John O’Sullivan, Cory (O’Sullivan) and Cian Dillon that have been around us quite a bit the last few weeks and it’s great because they’re doing really well with the U20s, they’re working extremely hard, and being around us right now is a really good reward for them

The club released a statement during the week about consequences for fans bringing in fireworks to Tallaght Stadium after a couple of recent near misses regarding fan safety. Fan and indeed player and staff safety really is the key issue here around the club statement.

“Yes, I think so. Everyone around the club and Tallaght Stadium has worked really hard to make it a really nice environment for families with young kids to watch football. That’s what we should be looking at if we’re looking to grow our support base in Tallaght Stadium and get more people in the ground. If they feel unsafe in any way whatsoever regarding flares or anything like that, we don’t need it in the ground. What I really like about Tallaght Stadium is the amount of families you see, young boys and girls really enjoying football in a mixed environment. So we can’t make it a dangerous place to come and watch football. Our fans are incredible, they really are and I’ve said this many times over the years how much they’ve helped us. We couldn’t ask much more in terms of support from them, but we need to be careful and understand that Tallaght Stadium is a place for all to watch football and we need to keep it that way.”

Finally, you had listed several players who weren’t available for the postponed Drogheda game. Are any of those now available for the Derry game?

“No, I don’t think any of them will make it, it’s just too early for Seán Hoare, Jack Byrne and Trevor Clarke. Hopefully, next Saturday (away to Sligo) is a different picture. Aaron McEneff, Seán Kavanagh and Neil Farrugia are longer-term. Neil had his shoulder operation last Monday and it went really well, so we’re a week in already, that’s the way to look at that. Hopefully, depending on Neil’s rehab, he’ll be back in a few weeks”