Champions out to win battle of the Rovers

SOCCER: AIRTRICITY LEAGUE:IF IT'S true you start to get a sense of how the campaign is going to pan out after the first complete round of fixtures, then it should come as no surprise that Michael O'Neill and Stephen Kenny are happy enough ahead of another busy weekend of games in the Airticity-sponsored league.

The champions sit three points clear with just over a quarter of the programme completed and welcome Sligo this evening, looking for a fourth straight win over the team tipped by most a couple of months back to be their closest challengers for the title, while Derry’s young side lead the chasing pack.

“Obviously we’re pleased,” says O’Neill. “We won a tough league game up there and beat them twice in the Setanta Sports Cup, we’ve made the final of that competition and the league so you have to fairly happy but really, there’s not much between us and them, just four points, and we certainly wouldn’t be taking anything for granted about this game so there’s a long way to go and we’ve got to keep on playing well.”

The absence of Gavin Peers, who is suspended, tops Paul Cook’s list of problems this evening but the visitors will be confident after their 3-0 defeat of Derry City earlier in the week. John Russell, rested for that game for tactical reasons it seems, should return.

O’Neill is still without Gary Twigg and Stephen O’Donnell but Craig Sives and Chris Turner are getting back to full fitness and the latter in particular has a chance of playing some part from the bench this evening.

As things stand the game between Rovers and Derry in Tallaght scheduled for next week would have been another of the season’s early highlights but it has had to be moved twice, with an initial switch to the start of the week after next due to the Setanta Cup decider being quickly abandoned because the Gardaí will be preoccupied then with the Queen’s visit.

That means the game is bumped into the middle of a spell in which City are already down to meet St Patrick’s Athletic in Inchicore as well as Bohemians and Sligo at home.

To 800 years of oppression then, critics of the Crown in the northern city can now also add some seriously unfavourable fixture rescheduling to their list of complaints.

“It’s not ideal because if you were missing a couple of players through injury they could easily miss all four of those games,” says Kenny, “and if you only took two or three points from the four games your season could nearly be over.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it, though, and we’ll worry about it when the games come around. Before that we’ve home games against UCD and Drogheda which, if we won them both, could put us in a good position.”

He’s hampered somewhat ahead of this evening’s meeting with the students by the suspension of Kevin Deery, Emmet Friars and Eddie McCallion, all sent off in the defeat by Sligo but, he says, “we’ve no real complaints; the first yellows were a bit harsh but none of the second ones were and it was a bit careless of the lads, really, because we could have taken the 3-0 loss but had a stronger squad coming into these games. As it is, we’ve five defenders at the club and two of them are unavailable.”

Stewart Greacen, at least, returns as, most likely, will Ruairí Harkin but Gareth McGlynn and Barry Molloy miss out again through injury.

Bray, meanwhile, will look to regain a bit of the momentum lost in a couple of recent draws by beating St Patrick’s Athletic, as they did in fairly remarkable fashion at Richmond Park early in the campaign when they came from two down to win 3-2.

The club’s form, though, continues to be better on the road, they will again be missing Darren Quigley, Gary Shaw and Stephen Brennan and their opponents, now the league’s top scorers, warmed up nicely for their revenge mission this week by putting five past Galway.

There, Sean Connor admits confidence is “very low,” ahead of Dundalk’s visit as a result of the burden being placed on young players due to injuries to more experienced squad members.

“We’re asking a lot of them,” says the manager, “but I’m hoping this spell will stand to them over the long term.”

Brian Cash, Séan Kelly, Gary Curran and Joseph Yoffe are all out this evening but Shaun Maher should return, while Bobby Ryan faces a late fitness test.

Mick Cooke, meanwhile, has a full squad to choose from as Drogheda look for a first win of the campaign, at home to Bohemians, one that could lift them above Galway were United to lose.

“Bohemians will be tough but the last game was a close thing and if we play to the best of our ability we’ll be in with a shout,” he said.