Alan Reynolds says his Bohemians players’ sole focus is on their own performance when they take on Shamrock Rovers in the last meeting between the league’s fiercest rivals at Dalymount Park before the stadium is redeveloped.
Bohs come into the game with confidence as Friday’s 4-2 victory away to Galway United made it three wins in a row, extending their unbeaten run to five.
That result, combined with Rovers conceding late on to lose 2-1 to Sligo Rovers on Friday, leaves Reynolds’ side, currently in third place, just three points off tomorrow’s visitors who top the table.
Reynolds said: “We’ve spoken before to the players about the significance of this season being our last in Dalymount before it is redeveloped, so our last Dublin derby here against Rovers is obviously a significant one.
“The players are fully aware of what these occasions mean to everyone at the club, and we have to channel that expectation and the energy we will get from the stands into delivering the high level of performance that is required to beat a team as good as Rovers.
“That has to be our sole focus – getting the performance right on the pitch to get the result right. We have done that in recent weeks, getting three good wins against teams we have found it difficult to get results against in the past, so now we need to build on that further against a team who’ve set the standards in recent seasons.
“We are not looking at the league table, but what we are doing is always striving for consistency in our own performances and consistency in our own results. We have had that over the past three weeks but now we will have to be better again still.
“It’s a game we are really looking forward to. We’re coming into it in good form and with confidence in our own ability and how we are playing, but fully aware how good Rovers are and how clinical they can be.”
Having struggled for goals at times this season, Reynolds is also encouraged by the attacking threat on display by his side on Friday with four players – Dawson Devoy, Douglas James-Taylor, Ross Tierney and Patrick Hickey – all on the scoresheet.
Reynolds said: “The goals have been coming for us in the past few weeks and that has been pleasing. We have different people chipping in with them too, which at times we struggled to do earlier in the season, even when we were on that good run at the start.
“I’ve always said you can’t just be relying on your striker for goals so we’ve worked hard on our attacking play and our set-pieces and we need to keep that up.
“Having the likes of Dayle Rooney and Dougie available again over the past number of weeks has made a huge contribution to that. We missed them for the period they were out injured and they’ve made a big impact over the past number of weeks.
“We’ve scored some great goals too. Dawson’s opener on Friday was a cracker to cap off a big week for him after getting the Ireland call-up, and again he was central to our second, from Dougie, which was a brilliant team goal.
“Any win against a John Caulfield team is a good win but to score four goals against a team that we have previously found it very hard to break down was a great night’s work. Obviously we’re never happy conceding twice but overall it was a very good performance.
“In the first half we started with real purpose and were commanding throughout the half. The second half was a different kind of game as Galway came at us more but on both occasions when they got a goal back, we responded quickly by scoring ourselves which shows the level of confidence the players have in themselves at the moment that we were probably missing a bit a month or so ago.”
Team news
Bohemians are without Sam Todd (hamstring) and Senan Mullen (hamstring) while Markuss Strods (leg) is a doubt.
Match sponsor: Cleary’s
J&M Cleary’s pub, under the bridge on Amiens St, serving the finest of pints since 1846.
Match ball sponsors
- Cerebral Palsy Football Development Academy
- AM Estate Managment
