Tickets remain on sale for Sunday evening FAI Cup tie in Tallaght Stadium. Kickoff is at 7pm

We had another memorable European night on Thursday night with a 4-0 win over FK Ballkani to qualify for the UEFA Conference League play-off. It was a brilliant team performance.

“It was. We knew as a group, we had to go up some levels on the first leg, the players did that. I thought to a man, they were outstanding in every department and fully deserved to win. It was a really high level European performance, they showed all their know-how, experience, and quality. So, it was a really good night’s work.”

After a decent start, it was Ballkani who came closest to scoring when they hit the post. Again, it shows just how important concentration is at this level.

“We’re disappointed at that chance we gave up. We knew they would try things on set plays, we had seen that with them. It hits the post and we get away with it, but it’s an area we’re usually very good at. We know we need to switch on in those areas, so if that went in, it could be a different game.”

We did finish the half really strongly however, with Rory’s offside goal and then the opener, that was such a key moment. 

“It was, the timing of it was key. It was a really good goal, really well worked by us. But the timing of it, just before half time, was key. It definitely changed Ballkani’s outlook at half time and changes ours. The momentum was then with us for the second half.”

Before Ballkani had time to maybe come back at us, Rory scored again and we really kicked on from there. That must’ve been a really satisfying second half to watch.

“It’s been a really pleasing aspect of us this year, when we’ve had teams on the ropes, we’ve finished them. That’s been really good and we spoke about it in pre-season, areas we can be better. I think we’ve seen that this year, the majority of times, we’ve put games to bed and we did that very quickly against Ballkani. Once we had them, very similar to Derry a couple of weeks before, we went for them. That was really pleasing.”

On Sunday, we welcome Longford Town to Tallaght for our last sixteen Sports Direct FAI Cup tie. Longford are eighth in Division One, but they can’t be dismissed or taken lightly on Sunday.

“No team in this country can be. One of our aims is to win the FAI Cup. If we want to do that, we need to make sure we get past Longford. Our mentality, like every other team, will be to respect them, then impose ourselves on the game, try and win it and make sure we’re in the next round.”

Longford’s Head Coach Wayne Groves took over at the start of the season after an initial temporary role and he has a long coaching career at various levels. Are you familiar with Wayne and do you see Longford coming here with nothing to lose and keen to put it up to us? 

“I am familiar with Wayne, from schoolboy and all the way up. I’d know Wayne and how his teams like to play and his identity. Longford will come and have a right go tomorrow, which you would expect. So, we need to respect that and be ready for that.”

Finally, is anyone unavailable for the Cup game? 

“We have a few knocks from Thursday that we need to look at this morning. We’ll need to see how bad they are, assess them and talk to the medical team, but hopefully they’re nothing serious. I think Aaron McEneff will be back, if not for tomorrow, definitely for the first leg against Santa Clara. Max Kovalevskis had knee surgery during the week. He thought he could get through, he had a little setback on his knee, but it’s only a little clean-up. It shouldn’t be too long, maybe 3-4 weeks. We’re hoping to get him back quickly, as he was flying when he came in. We know what we have with Max. It’s a frustrating time for him, but that’s football and Max will be better for it.”