Tickets remain on sale for Friday night’s match in Tallaght Stadium Kick off is at 8pm, coverage on LOITV.

It was a disappointing 0-0 draw with Drogheda on Monday night. But you’ve said often, if you can’t win the game, don’t lose it, so was that your feeling afterwards?

“Yes, you’re right. We know we weren’t at our best by any means, but with Friday/Monday games, sometimes it happens. So it happened on Monday, but the pleasing aspect is, we left with the point and we move on.”

You were able to give Maleace Asamoah his debut after he served a suspension carried over from Wigan Athletic. How did you feel Maleace performed?

“I thought he did ok, considering he hadn’t played for us and hadn’t played in some time. Drogheda is a difficult one, in terms of the smaller pitch and how they set up doesn’t play to Maleace’s strengths. But it was great to get him on the pitch, we’ve watched him for some time and I’ve no doubt what Maleace will bring to us going forward. It’s only early in his development and I thought he did ok.”

Galway United come to Tallaght this weekend, with a record of two wins, two draws and three defeats. What have you made of their 2026 season so far having seen their games?

“They’ve done well. People within football will understand how much John Caulfield knows the league inside out. What he does year after year deserves so much respect. Obviously, he has won everything in the league, but you see what he’s doing with Galway in terms of building new teams. This year he lost a serious amount of players but has, in my opinion, built one of their best teams. So enormous credit goes to John and Galway will come to Tallaght looking to win the game. So we need to be ready for that. John‘s teams are always set up right and ready to go. I know it’s early, but I think this Galway team is as good as any he has had.”

After seven games ourselves, we have twelve points, one more than the same point last season, so are you happy enough with how we’re sitting as we approach the end of the first quarter of the league season?

“We still have those two games in the first round of games, Galway tomorrow and Waterford the one after. As you said, we’re slightly ahead of where we were last season. But you always feel you’ve left points behind, for example, the last minute goal against Dundalk. But that’s football so we need to focus on tomorrow and then Waterford after that and we’ll look at the standings. So although we’re slightly ahead from 2025, we just need to stay focussed.”

Danny Mandroiu and Dan Cleary remain out with injury. Is Rory Gaffney any nearer a return and anyone else unavailable?

“Rory is getting there. He was always going to be a few weeks following a procedure he had. That’s fine and we’re comfortable with that and the main thing is Rory is feeling a lot better. So we’re hoping the next three weeks we’ll see Rory back and the international break will come at a good time for him. Dylan Watts picked up a knock on Monday, he will struggle for tomorrow. Maybe at a different point in the season, we could push him, but it’s not like Dylan to be out injured. We took him out of the team as he’s played so much recently, but then he came on in Drogheda and picked up the knock. Sometimes that’s just how it goes and hopefully he’s not too bad. Everyone else is fine.”