Bohemians manager Alan Reynolds says his side is determined to keep their winning run going but said that their form over the past fortnight shows you will get nothing in this league without hard work and persistence right up to the final whistle.
Bohs come into the game on the back of three successive victories for the first time since April 2024, and you have to go back another 12 months to April 2023 for the last time the club won four games in a row.
The wins against Cork City, Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick’s Athletic were all achieved through patience and belief, with winning goals in the 85th, 96th and 97th minutes respectively.
Reynolds said: “It hasn’t been good on the heart! But what our last three games show is that you will get nothing in this league unless you work hard for it, and work hard for it right until the end.
“But I think our supporters see now how hard we are working now. When results weren’t going our way, I’m sure people grew tired of hearing how hard I believe the lads were working in training but when it translates on to the pitch in the way it has in the past couple of weeks, I hope our supporters see what I meant.
“It’s what I see from them in training every week, and it’s what I believe they are capable of producing on the pitch.
“Our players’ persistence paid off in all three games now but we know that the challenge for us now is to keep that going. We can’t take the foot off the pedal. We enjoyed the win on the night but you can’t dwell on it, it’s straight back to work for the next one.”
Bohs host Reynolds’ former club Waterford who, after a tricky start to the season that saw Keith Long depart as manager, got back to winning ways with a relatively comfortable win against Derry City last week.
Reynolds said: “We’ve another massive home game now and we want to deliver again. It’s a cliche but there are no easy games in this league.
“We had a good victory the last time we played Waterford but they took 10 points off Bohs last season so we know how good their players can be too.
“We didn’t need a reminder of that, but we got one anyway last week when they had a brilliant win against a good Derry team.
“So it’s another really tough game for us but we’re going into it in good form, looking up the table rather than over our shoulder.”
And Reynolds is hoping for more ‘bedlam in Dublin 7’ again this week, adding that fans’ patience and encouragement helped them get over the line against St Pat’s.
He added: “The lads have the taste now of how great Dalymount can be when we win. There’s simply no match for it anywhere in the country, so our lads have seen that now and are desperate to keep that going.
“The scenes last week were incredible, the Jodi Stand was on wheels and that kind of feeling is exactly why we’re all in football, and what we are striving to achieve every time we play.
“That’s what we’ve always been looking to build here. The players are bouncing off the energy of the crowd, it’s so important.
“Even when we went in at half-time 1-0 down last week, our fans could see that we were playing well, were unlucky with the penalty decision that went for us, and them clapping the lads off at the break and roaring them on had the lads pumped up to go again in the second half, and we all got our reward in the end.”
Team news
Bohemians are without Leigh Kavanagh (hamstring), Connor Parsons (hamstring) and Alex Lacey (hamstring) but Dawson Devoy returns from suspension and Lys Mousset (Achilles) is back in contention.