Stephen Bradley spoke to shamrockrovers.ie ahead of Sunday’s FAI Cup final versus Cork City. Kickoff is at 3pm, and coverage will be on RTE2.

We won our first point of our Conference League phase with a 1-1 draw away to AEK Athens. Are you happy we’ve got that point or still angry we were denied all three with the hugely controversial penalty AEK were awarded in the 90th minute?

”I’m still a bit frustrated, angry, whatever you want to call it, a bit of both. And it’s because it’s been taken away from the players and that’s not nice. I know in the bigger picture, we needed to take a point off one of the big teams and it could be a big point for us, but just in that moment, I felt the players were robbed of three points by a really weak referee.”

So the big games roll on, with our first FAI Cup final since 2020 as we play Cork City. Usually there’s a week of a build-up to the game and all that comes with it. Was it a good distraction to have the big European game to focus minds and preserve nervous energy that can drain players in cup final week?

“It was brilliant and was what we needed before the cup final. It was quite clear to see in the last few league games,  that the edge had just came off us a little. You know when you go to places like Athens, you can’t afford to have that. You could see we were on it in every aspect and when you look at the arena, the atmosphere, the fans and obviously the team you’re against, it was perfect in terms of it leading into a big domestic game. So it was definitely the right preparation.”

Cork City are in the final on merit having had a resounding semi final victory over St Patrick’s Athletic. How well has Ger Nash done, coming in when Cork were already battling relegation

“Tim Clancy had different challenges when he was there that he had to deal with. Then Ger and his staff have come in and done well. Cork are in the final because they deserve to be there, they were brilliant against St Pats in the semi-final. They’ve been good, they’ve lost the majority of their games in the second half of the season by one goal, so they’ve been tight games for them. So we know Cork will bring their best tomorrow and we’ve got to respect that and be ready for it.”

It’s incredible to consider that eight of the group who won the FAI cup for Rovers in 2019 are still part of it or back for a second spell. How much will their experience help those who haven’t experienced the FAI Cup final?

“It’s good that we still have that. But time has moved on, it’s a different challenge tomorrow. What this group has is they understand what it takes to play in these type of games. That’s so important and we’ll need to use that tomorrow and make sure all that experience we’ve picked up throughout the years comes into play tomorrow.”

Finally, in terms of availability, it was great to get Danny Mandroiu plenty of minutes in Athens. How did he and everyone else emerge from Thursday and are Rory Gaffney, Josh Honohan and Aaron Greene in contention for the cup final?

“Danny Mandroiu and Danny Grant came through the game ok. Rory’s scan was all clear, that’s why we had to leave him at home on Thursday, but it’s clear and that’s great. Josh is fine, he’ll train today. Aaron will struggle, it’s still too early. To be fair to Aaron, if Rory’s scan was negative, Aaron said he would be available to play and that’s the type he is. But thankfully we don’t have to take that risk. I’m gutted for Aaron as it’s a cup final but he’ll just miss out.”