Kick off in the RSC is at 7.45pm, coverage of the match is on LOITV

Mark Lynch	10:46 (1 hour ago)
to me

We return from an international break this weekend. After two early postponements, it proved a hectic first eight games, so was the short break welcome in any way this time?

“Yes that’s exactly what you said. After the two early games were called off, we’ve had a hectic schedule, which is not ideal after coming off a short pre-season. But I thought the group, as a whole, dealt with it really well. But the break was welcome because of that hectic schedule they had. So, it was nice for the players to have some downtime.”

We had so many players away on international duty at different ages and levels, it’s such an indication of how well they are doing and are they all back ok and injury-free?

“Everyone came back ok, some played a lot more than others. Victor Ozhianvuna played three games, Alex Noonan also played three games. Michael Noonan played one so some played a lot of minutes between them, so you have to be mindful of that also and understand the bigger picture. But we’ve no complaints, we understand it’s international football and it’s an honour for them to play and try to achieve for their country. Victor playing three games for the Ireland under 17s is them trying to qualify for the World Cup and they did that, which is great. It means, all going well, that Victor will be playing in his second World Cup in November, which is great.”

Our last league outing was the 2-0 home win over Galway. Having reviewed it, two excellent goals and a clean sheet made it a good night’s work.

“It did, because of what I said before the game about Galway. I truly believe they have some real dangers in their team, they’re a good team and they will show that over the course of the season. It was important for us to show we were ready, we did that, scored two and kept the clean sheet. So it was a good night’s work.”

Waterford F.C. away completes the first round of games. Waterford have found it tough so far this season, but with a proven winning manager in Jon Daly and plenty of quality in their team, Waterford will ask us plenty of questions.

“Other than the Dundalk game, I didn’t see any other game that they were out of completely. I’ve watched a lot of their games, obviously with Cian Barrett down there on loan. I’m sure they will feel they’ve been in every game and possibly should have more points on the board. When you have the likes of Conan Noonan and Padraig Amond in your team, you always have a chance of winning games. We’re not foolish and we’re not ones who will look at the league table and think anything other than we’re going to Waterford and it’ll be a tough game. That’s what we’re expecting.”

How are Dan Cleary, Dylan Watts and Rory Gaffney with their injuries and is anyone unavailable for the Waterford game?

“Dan and Dylan I imagine will still be another couple of weeks, but both are doing well. Danny Mandroiu is doing really well with his recovery, I think he’ll be ahead of schedule. We will know more about Rory at the end of this week. Adam Brennan has a knock, we’ll check on him today, he feels like he’s ready to go, but we just need to be careful. We just need to see the bigger picture with him, Adam has been so good for us so far so we need to be careful with that one. We’ll make that decision today.”