Stephen Bradley keen to bring ‘identity’ to Shamrock Rovers Champions League tie

With no league action now for around a month, the Hoops signed off with a hard-fought home win to keep their faint five-in-a-row hopes alive. But the three points were also important with Tuesday’s first-leg clash with Vikingur Reykjavik fast approaching, with the second leg in Tallaght on Tuesday week.

Should the champions progress past Vikingur, they will be guaranteed a place in the Europa league third qualifying round, and a Conference League play-off should they lose that, making the next fortnight all the more important.

Ahead of the trip to the Reykjavik, the second consecutive season Rovers have faced the champions of Iceland (they fell to a 3-1 aggregate defeat to Breidablik at this stage last year), Bradley is aware his men must bring their best to progress and labelled the tie as “50-50”.

“It’s going to be a real difficult tie. But what I liked (against Dundalk) was that we had our identity back for 60 minutes, it was a lot more like us,” said Bradley after Thursday’s victory, which Vikingur’s manager was also in attendance for, with the gap on leaders Shelbourne now cut to 13 points with a game in hand.

“We need to bring that. If we bring that over the two legs we have a chance of winning the tie. If we don’t it won’t be enough because they are a good side. Like Briedablik last year, they’re well coached. It’s going to be a good tie, 50-50.

“A really high percentage of their goals come from crosses, we’re going to have to be really good to stop that. But I genuinely believe we can hurt them going the other way.”

Pushed on how he felt his side had lost their identity, Bradley pointed to last week’s 2-0 defeat away to Sligo Rovers.

“I thought we were poor in Sligo. I’ve no problem losing games, sport can be cruel at times and sometimes you can be brilliant, you take it on the chin and move on, but Sligo wasn’t like us,” he said.

“Even though we had chances to win the game, we never had any control in it. We were outworked, we were outfought and we got beat. But on Thursday, we looked a lot like us for the hour.”

After returning to winning ways following back-to-back defeats Bradley walked around the pitch to thank the fans at full-time, as he opened up on a moment that struck a chord with him during their 2019 FAI Cup triumph at Lansdowne Road.

“I love when you see the young fans. What the club is about is generations and it getting passed down,” he added.

“I remember the Cup final and it really hit me looking into the stands, men in their 70s and 80s and seeing them with their kids and their grandkids, it was special for me. Now, when I see the kids here with their parents or grandparents, it’s important to me that we say hello. Once they get the bug we can’t overlook how important that connection is.”

Meanwhile, Dundalk boss Jon Daly admits there are some players in the building seeking a move away from Oriel Park this summer, as he hopes to bring in a striker among some other new faces to bolster their survival hopes.

“Certainly not done (in this window). We need a big overhaul. (There are) players in the building that want to leave. (We’re) quite open to that happening, it will happen. It’s about replacing what’s going out with players of higher calibre,” said Daly.

“They (strikers) are very hard to come by. Definitely strikers out there we can maybe go after, (even if) people think they don’t have great goal-scoring histories. Sometimes strikers need to find the right home before they start banging in goals. I’m having conversations with strikers, more than one. I don’t anticipate the business we’ve done so far is finished.”