Friday night’s match in the Ryan McBride Brandywell kicks off at 7.45pm. Coverage available on LOITV.

It was a convincing and impressive 4-0 win for us on Monday night over St Patrick’s Athletic. What pleased you most about the performance?

“The clean sheet. I know Pat’s hit the bar, but the clean sheet was important for us again. I really liked large aspects of the performance. We know Pat’s are a good team, they’ve got good players and they had all their attacking players on the pitch. They’re going to have their moments and they did, but overall I thought we controlled the game and fully deserved to win. There were large aspects of it that were really good against a good team and also off the back of a difficult game away to Waterford, so it was a really really good performance against Pat’s.”

You’d mentioned in the early weeks of the season, you’d sacrificed pre-season friendlies due to the Christmas week finish of 2024 and the February 2025 restart in the Conference League and that could have repercussions for our sharpness in terms of making and converting chances. Is that sharpness now beginning to show?

“I think so. As I said previously, when that decision was made, you have to understand that certain things aren’t going to be where you want them to be early on. So I felt in the final third, that little bit of sharpness wasn’t there, that little bit of speed in the thought and in the mind and obviously in the action, it wasn’t there. But we knew that would come and thankfully the last few weeks, we’re seeing that and we’ve scored a lot of goals. So it’s pleasing, but I never worried about it, because history tells you that we create the most chances and we’re up there in terms of goals scored. So I was never really worried about it.”

Even though two-goal Graham Burke was SRFCTV’s Player of the Match against Pat’s, most other players on the night could’ve justifiably been awarded that mantle.

“Yes, they could. Graham deservedly got it, but I thought you could just as easily have given it to any player on the pitch. To a man, they were excellent and we dominated the game so any of them could’ve been picked. But you can’t argue with Graham getting it considering his performance.”

With international break again looming and Josh Honohan already called into the Ireland senior squad, Cory O’Sullivan has been called up to the under 21s for two upcoming friendlies. It’s a deserved recognition for what’s been an impressive season so far for Cory.

“Yes, it is. We know, us here in the club and the fans who watch every week, that we shouldn’t be one bit surprised at how good Cory has been. He has come into an established back three, with lots of experience and he hasn’t missed a beat. Cory has been excellent. The pleasing thing with Cory is, the last maybe fourteen months is that he’s been really understanding and patient in that he’s had to learn while in the building. We had opportunities to loan Cory out, but haven’t done that. We kept him here to learn and he’s done that really well. He’s stayed hungry and focussed, kept working on his game and though I know he may have been exposed in the past, this year he’s rarely been exposed, and you can see he’s ready. That’s really pleasing for us.”

It’s Derry City away this weekend. We played out a scoreless draw in Tallaght when our goalkeeper Ed McGinty was sent off in the first half. Derry have been in excellent form this season, especially at home recently. Where do you see their threats to us?

“Similar to St. Pat’s, if you look at their attacking players, they have as good as anyone in the country. We know they have attacking threats on the pitch so we need to be ready for that. But we also know we’re in a good place, so we’ll be going there to hurt them and impose ourselves on the game and ultimately win the game. But it should be a good game, we know Derry are a good team with a good manager and there’s always a good atmosphere in Derry. We’re looking forward to it.”

Our recent record however at the Ryan McBride Brandywell is pretty good, so Derry’s artificial surface doesn’t concern the group, and you like its size.

“It’s not ideal. I don’t think anyone will tell you they want to play on that kind of pitch. I’d imagine Derry would be the same. But the one thing that balances that off is the pitch size. We like that type of pitch, we always enjoy playing on it, although they are always tough games. But we enjoy it and are looking forward to it.”

Lee Grace took a really heavy fall on his back on Monday. How is he and did anyone else come away from Monday night’s game with any concerns?

“We’ve no issues other than Lee. Lee’s is a sore one. We’ll check on him today but it is a sore one so we’ll see how that looks today.”