Kick-off in Eamon Deacy Park is at 7.45pm. Coverage on LOITV

We followed up the 1-0 win against Waterford from Friday night with a 4-1 victory on Monday against Drogheda United. Were you pleased with the improved performance against Drogheda?

“On Monday we were good for the majority of the game. I thought in every aspect we were good. It was probably the best we’ve been in terms of a longer period of time in the game. We were very good for a long spell in the game, which was really pleasing.”

John McGovern scored two excellently taken goals in that game.

“If you look at John’s games at the start of the year I think he has been unlucky that he hasn’t got more goals to be honest. He’s kept working hard and it was only a matter of time before the goals came for him. His two goals were really well taken.”

We had Maleace Asamoah score the fourth goal and his first for the club, having played in the last three matches.

“Maleace has been doing a lot of hard work behind the scenes in terms of getting up to speed and getting the grips with what we do and what’s demanded of him in this system and how we play. He’s coming from a place that plays and demands things completely different to us. It’s taken him time to understand that but the pleasing bit has been his attitude towards that improvement and wanting to improve. We’ve obviously been feeding him in and out of the team but it’s great to see him on Monday. He was excellent. I was delighted that he got a really good goal and I thought his all round game was very, very good.”

That goal made it 4-1 with just over 20 minutes to go allowing you to make a quadruple substitution – helping you manage players’ minutes and it gave you a chance to give a debut to 17-year-old Ben Mahon.

“When you look at the players that came off, it was the two centre backs who are only back from injury, and Jack Byrne and Matt Healy who have played a lot of minutes as well. So we have to protect them. Ben’s been working really hard behind the scenes, doing really well for the under-20s. We’ve been looking for opportunities to get Ben involved, so it was good to give him a debut. He got a knock but hopefully it’s not too bad. We’ll just have to wait for his scan results. Regardless of what the scan tells us, we know that he’s got a bright future.”

How much do players having yellow cards factor into substitutions?

“I think it comes with a bit of a mix of everything to be honest. You have to feel what the game is, what type of game it is. But you also have to trust your players and trust their experience that they understand when they’re booked how to manage certain situations.”

Rovers have got a very good record against Galway United, with five wins and four draws from the last couple of seasons but only one of those wins (the 2-0 home win earlier this year) has been by more than one goal. That shows the challenge that John Caulfield’s side bring.

“I think it will be no different on Friday. It’s going to be a really tough game and we know that. We’ll give Galway all the respect that they deserve.”

What are the updates on the fitness of Pico Lopes and Rory Gaffney?

“We’ll know more on Pico today. With Rory, he’s on a strong course of antibiotics at the moment that means he’s not allowed to do any physical activity. He was supposed to be back a few weeks ago but he picked up a little infection around the injury and you have to be really careful with those sorts of things.”