Scully’s got high Hoops
After just one season in the second tier, Shamrock Rovers are back in the top-flight and, in the opinion of manager Pat Scully, therein lies a lesson to which the fallen champions would do well to play attention.
“To me, the success that Shels have had is tainted now because it was at a price where the club nearly went out of business,” says Scully. “It’s just not worth it. But it was a new start for Shamrock Rovers when I took over and I suppose Shels can look at it in a similar way.
“The most important thing when they start again is that they don’t make the same mistakes they did before. The board that we have at Rovers are a fantastic example of doing things properly and doing things professionally. We don’t have a fantastic budget but I respect what I’ve been given because I know how hard people have worked to get that budget for me.”
Barely 16 months after relegation and, for a time before that, the even bleaker prospect of the famous club going to the wall, Rovers are back as First Division champions — and with more than mere survival in the Premier Division on the agenda.
Forthright as ever — last year his criticisms of the League met with a heavy fine — the former Shels and Rovers player states that his ambition for the Hoops this year is nothing short of winning the League.
“Our club is all about winning,” says Scully. “Our club is all about trophies and qualifying for Europe. There’s a huge expectation here. I don’t have any problem with that because I have big expectations myself. We have some fantastic footballers and, if we do lack a little bit of experience, they showed last year that they learn quickly. They’ll have to learn quicker this year because it’s a different standard. But I firmly believe that we have five or six players who will be as good as anything in this league.
“People talk too much about money and budgets. Don’t get me wrong: it’s great to have it and your options are better. But we try to do it slightly differently. They have bigger budgets, there’s no disputing that, but what we’ve tried to do is bring in good players and make them better. They’re young but they have the potential to be extremely good. And I fully expect us to do very, very well this year.”
The approach for Rovers this year has been to season their young squad with a sprinkling of experience.
“Our pre-season has gone extremely well,” says Scully. “The core of the group we had last year we’ve kept. In fact, a lot of my work was done last season. We specifically brought in players so that if we did win the First Division I wouldn’t have to make too many changes. This year we’ve been able to handpick four or five in certain areas where we felt we needed to strengthen. We missed out on a couple but then, financially, it’s difficult to compete with certain clubs. But I’m very pleased with the squad we have.”
Among the new arrivals are the familiar League of Ireland faces of Barry Ferguson, Danny O’ Connor and Stephen O’Brien.
“They bring Premier League experience and that is one thing that we probably do lack,” Scully observes. “They’ve all played in the Premier league for eight or nine years. Through the spine of the team we have a decent amount of experience. The board have worked extremely hard and, for what we’ve had to spend, I think we’ve done very well.”
For their Premier Division return, Rovers will have to make only the short trip to Belfield for their opening game against UCD on Friday night.
Linfield went one point clear of Derry City at the top of Setanta Cup Group 1 last night but they were held to a 1-1 draw by Glentoran.
Thomas Stewart put Linfield ahead on 21 minutes but Jason Hill equalised 10 minutes later.
In Group 2, Dungannon Swifts grabbed a last minute equaliser to hold Portadown 2-2. Ryan McCluskey put Swifts ahead but second-half goals by Michael Collins and Gary McCutcheon put Ports in control, until John Paul Gallagher’s last minute goal.
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