It's the Hoops' title to throw away
Credit: Extratime Team (ETPhotos)
As a lot of LOI supporters know at this stage, I support Shamrock Rovers. How did I get into it? Most of my friends are Rovers supporters and they took me under their wing I suppose. My Dad is actually a St Pat’s supporter, so we always have good banter. Last season Pats actually made me an honorary member of the supporters club after I helped a charity event with the club - not bad for a Rovers girl!
Last season, I actually ended up at more Sligo Rovers games. I was at pretty much every home game in Sligo, and when they were away if I was in Dublin for the weekend I’d get to a Rovers game instead. This season, though, I’ll try and get to a few more of them because a lot of my friends are season ticket holders in Tallaght.
Looking at this year, it’s almost disappointing in a way that there doesn’t seem to be any huge threat from other teams. In saying that, we'll still likely find some problem to run into (Sods Law!) and our biggest challenge is going to be settling on a team. I do wonder if that is something that will trouble us somewhere down the line. The fact of the matter is, no matter what crap they might tell the papers if a player isn't playing every week he ain't happy.
I think a lot will depend on finding and playing the best eleven players that’ll work well together week in, week out. Maybe there could be a situation where there’s a different team every week, and they don’t gel and then we’d be just throwing away games then. On the surface, it looks like it could be a walk in the park for us, but it never is in reality.
Being at the final few games last season, I remember thinking I can’t believe this is happening, when we were going into games and just throwing them away by conceding soft goals. Goals were just being let in, the ball just literally thrown over the goalkeeper. Talk about bottling it!
We were really, really lucky in the end. There’s no point in saying we were brilliant and deserved it if we had thrown it away. If Sligo had scored goals at the start of last season, they would probably have won the league with ease and that's who we've got to watch this season.
Last season, I actually ended up at more Sligo Rovers games. I was at pretty much every home game in Sligo, and when they were away if I was in Dublin for the weekend I’d get to a Rovers game instead. This season, though, I’ll try and get to a few more of them because a lot of my friends are season ticket holders in Tallaght.
Looking at this year, it’s almost disappointing in a way that there doesn’t seem to be any huge threat from other teams. In saying that, we'll still likely find some problem to run into (Sods Law!) and our biggest challenge is going to be settling on a team. I do wonder if that is something that will trouble us somewhere down the line. The fact of the matter is, no matter what crap they might tell the papers if a player isn't playing every week he ain't happy.
I think a lot will depend on finding and playing the best eleven players that’ll work well together week in, week out. Maybe there could be a situation where there’s a different team every week, and they don’t gel and then we’d be just throwing away games then. On the surface, it looks like it could be a walk in the park for us, but it never is in reality.
Being at the final few games last season, I remember thinking I can’t believe this is happening, when we were going into games and just throwing them away by conceding soft goals. Goals were just being let in, the ball just literally thrown over the goalkeeper. Talk about bottling it!
We were really, really lucky in the end. There’s no point in saying we were brilliant and deserved it if we had thrown it away. If Sligo had scored goals at the start of last season, they would probably have won the league with ease and that's who we've got to watch this season.
