Alan Reynolds says Bohemians will need to dig deep on the pitch and in the stands when they host Shamrock Rovers at Dalymount Park tonight.
Bohs come into the game on the back of a frustrating 2-1 defeat away to Waterford on Friday night and Reynolds has challenged his side to regroup and bounce back quickly against the league leaders.
Reynolds said: “Friday was a frustrating night for us. We didn’t start strongly enough, we didn’t assert ourselves on the game and we paid the price.
“We need to bounce back from that. We’ve worked too hard and given ourselves a strong foundation over the past couple of months to get too down after one result so we need to dust ourselves down and rise to the challenge.
“There’s no better way to move on from a disappointing result than playing in the Dublin derby. But this is going to be a huge test for us. We know we have a team who on our day can beat anyone in this league but we will only do that when we work hard for it.
“We’ve beaten Rovers before but they have been on a brilliant run since we last played them, and they are league leaders for a reason.
“We know that if we start like we did against Waterford, Rovers have players who will punish us. So our performance levels need to be right at it from the first whistle to the last.
“But we are playing in Dalymount in front of our own fans and we know the place will be rocking and that they will be right behind. These are the kind of games that we all want to be involved in and it’s really important that we use the advantage of playing at home for a game like this.
“We want to give our fans something to cheer about but it’s important that they stick with us. We’ve seen before how important it can be when games are in the balance that our fans get behind us and drive us on, and that’s what we’ll need in a game as big as this.
“We’re still a young team with young players who will make mistakes as I have said before but they are talented players with huge potential who can continue to thrive and improve if they get the kind of support that we’ve had this season.”
Bohs pushed and pushed for a late equaliser on Friday night after Dawson Devoy pulled one back with 20 minutes to go but ultimately Waterford’s two goals in first-half injury time left Bohs with too much of a hill to climb.
Reynolds added: “Having played some brilliant stuff the week before against Cork, we were disappointed with the start we had.
“We allowed Waterford to create too many chances and to concede twice after keeping a clean sheet in our previous three games is frustrating.
“But even though our performance wasn’t at the levels it had been in previous weeks, we still created plenty of chances ourselves in the first half.
“If we’d taken one of them it could have been a very different game and that’s something we keep striving to improve on, we need to be more ruthless.
“But we move on. We have a massive game now and we are really looking forward to it.”
Team news
Bohemians are without Archie Meekison (knee), Alex Lacey (hamstring) and Lys Mousset (hamstring).