Alan Reynolds is predicting an electric atmosphere at Tolka Park when Bohemians make the short trip to take on Shelbourne.
Bohs have been the early-season pace-setters with five wins and a draw from their opening six games.
Tomorrow, they face a side who, in their last meeting on the penultimate day of the 2025 season in Dalymount Park, nearly derailed Bohs’ chances of European qualification – only to help them over the line a week later by denying St Pat’s victory at Tolka Park.
Reynolds said: “We know how big a threat Shelbourne pose. We had some really big battles last season and they have players of real quality who can hurt you if our concentration levels aren’t what they need to be.
“We saw it when we played them in our last game against them in Dalymount last season. We played some brilliant stuff in that game, really good stuff. We were 2-0 up after 20 minutes or so, and still 2-1 up with only three minutes to go and they came back to hit us twice in the last few minutes to win the game.
“When we played them in Tolka last summer, again we had a good second half and were 2-1 up going into injury-time only to be pegged back to 2-2. So we are well aware of how good Shelbourne are and the threats they pose. They have strengthened further since last season too, and have an excellent manager in Joey O’Brien as we saw from the way their form picked up when he took charge last year.
“But we are coming into this game in really good form. We’ve won our last five games in a row, which is a great run for any team. They’ve been different types of wins in that run too. We’ve had to work hard for each of them, and we’ve had to find different ways of winning and managing tricky games too. We’re not patting ourselves on the back, we really want to keep that run going.
“But that form and being able to celebrate with fans has given the lads great confidence coming into this game. It’s a sold-out Dublin derby, the atmosphere will be electric, and there is pressure on both teams to deliver for their fans, so we have to focus on doing our own job right and making sure we start with tempo and maintain our concentration levels for the full game.”
On Friday, Bohs needed a late show of their own to get past a Galway side who had frustrated Reynolds’ men for most of the game, with a header from Pat Hickey in the 87th minute finally breaking the deadlock.
Reynolds said: “It was a good corner ball in by Markuss Strods, his first assist for us so we’re delighted for him too, and a brilliant header by Pat.
“Friday was a really tough game. We knew going into the game how well organised a team managed by John Caulfield was going to be, so that was no surprise for us.
“We struggled to break through them but I felt we really persisted. If you can’t get through an organised team through open play, you have to find another way and we did that.
“Last week against Waterford, we were brilliant in the first half and created plenty of chances and should have been further ahead before the break. This was a different kind of game, Galway were extremely hard to break down, and it was a really tight game.
“In the second half, the game was in danger of petering out but we kept going. I think the substitutes we brought on made a difference for us, it was a good debut off the bench for Zane Myers who caused Galway problems and got our fans going again.
“We had young players coming in, hungry to make an impact – Markuss, Zane and Hugh Martin all made a difference for us along with the experience of Jordan Flores and Darragh Power coming on to drive things on as well.
“We had Senan Mullen back in the team again on Friday, again another young player who hasn’t played a lot of senior football but who is really thriving for us so far.
“It took a goal from a set-piece to win it but it was a real team effort. Maybe last season, a game like Friday’s would have petered out and we would have taken the point but we have a determined group who really wanted to win again to keep the run going, particularly at home.
“We told our centre-halves that we expected them to chip in with goals this season from set-pieces – that our attacking players can’t shoulder all the burden – and in our last two games, we’ve done that with Sam Todd last week and Pat on Friday.
“We had a couple of scares at the end, Kacper Chorazka had to pull off a good save, Sam Todd took a painful one blocking a shot, and we were lucky that another shot straight afterwards went wide. So we got a little slice of luck at the end, but I think our hard work as a team throughout the game deserved that.”
Team news
Bohemians are without Dayle Rooney (knee) and Douglas James-Taylor (knee).
