Tickets remain on sale for Thursday evening UEFA Conference League Second Qualifying Round, Second Leg tie vs St. Joseph’s.

Ahead of our first home UEFA tie of the 2025/26 season, Stephen Bradley spoke to shamrockrovers.ie

We put ourselves in a tremendous position to qualify for the next qualifying round of the Conference League by beating St Joseph’s of Gibraltar 4-0 away last Thursday. Could it have gone any better than that?

“No, it couldn’t. To win away from home in any European game is difficult and anybody will tell you that. So to score four and not concede, play really well on the night considering everything, was a really good night all round. So to be honest, we couldn’t have asked for much more.”

The team only travelled on Wednesday afternoon from Dublin. Was that a club decision or unavoidable and were you comfortable with not training on their pitch beforehand?

“It was a club decision. Ross (Cullinane) worked extremely hard in getting us certain flight times and we decided, after speaking with a group, that we were very comfortable in training here at home. I think that shows the experience within the group, of being able to adapt to different situations. So we were fine, it was a nice experience, something different and it’s nice to know that if it happens again, we’ve done it and we know what it’s about.”

We hit a real purple patch in the second half against St Joseph’s with three goals in eight minutes to add to Rory Gaffney’s early first half strike. You must’ve been delighted to see how ruthless we were in the second half.

“In the first half, I felt there were times we were really good, but also times we were really sloppy in allowing St Joseph’s into the game. So we just needed to tidy up in that regard. At half time we had a look at it and we spoke about it. The players know that, they’re clever players and they understand. So second half we cut the sloppiness out, we were a lot more like ourselves.  I understand in terms of their pitch, that plays a part, but second half we were more like us in terms of our tempo and play. And we were ruthless, which was really good.”

We then had a Saturday afternoon friendly with Ballymena United in Tallaght Stadium where another John McGovern goal was enough for us to win 1-0. Was that important to keep getting minutes into players, especially new signing Conor Malley, who maybe haven’t featured as much recently and were you happy with the workout?  

“I think it’s only right that we try and do that as often as possible, when the group and time allows, because of the players that haven’t played. You want to keep them at a level where they’re ready to play. It’s unfair to ask a player to come in after not having played for a period of time and perform at optimum level. So Saturday was a really good game, everyone got minutes, everyone came out of it with no injuries and Conor Malley got on the pitch which was really good. He will play again tonight for the 20s, which will also be good. So it was good to get minutes into everyone, some got ninety which was needed.”

Being 4-0 up from the first leg, is there a temptation to make many changes to the first leg starting eleven or do you adopt a 0-0 aggregate mindset from kick off and see what happens?

“Regardless of the team, our mentality is that it’s 0-0 so we’ll go to win the game. That’s how we’re built, it’s how we play, to win the game and that won’t change tomorrow night. But we also know we have a heavy fixture load coming. We know we have a good squad and it’s important we use it. So it’s important we get the balance right between wanting to go and win the game, it’s important for the tie but also for our coefficient. We can’t underestimate that going forward. The more games you win, that’s really important for the league as a whole. That’s our aim tomorrow night.”

What’s our player availability for this game?  

“Everyone is available, except Conor Malley who wasn’t registered in time.”