Double-chasing duo’s showdown needs no hype
For league champions Shamrock Rovers, the game’s most celebrated double is up for grabs. For Sligo Rovers, there’s the chance to do their own double by adding the FAI Cup to the EA Sports Cup — as well as making up for the heartbreak of losing out in the dying minutes of the final last year to Sporting Fingal.
And for both clubs, there’s the tantalising prospect of walking out in the soaring Aviva Stadium for a season finale which is expected to draw the biggest crowd seen at a domestic game in many years.
Little wonder then that Shamrock Rovers manager Michael O’Neill, while fully appreciating how high the stakes are, is keen that his charges play the game and not the occasion.
“As players, you have to deal with occasion,” he says. “Hopefully, ifplayers are tuned and mentally right, the game takes care of itself. You can do everything to make sure they are right but I think the experience of that final league game in Bray will have helped them and playing against Juventus in Modena will also have helped when it comes to playing in the Aviva in front of a bigger crowd than they’re used to. And, to be fair, the players have played under a lot of pressure all season, particularly in Tallaght. I think we will handle situation fine.”
Compared with that final league decider in the Carlisle Grounds, is this nice pressure?
“Nicer, I would say,” he smiles. “We’ve put ourselves in a great position. It’s 23 years since the club last won the double and it would mean a lot to achieve that.
“The players may not get that chance again in their careers despite some of them being very young. From my experience, you always think it will happen next year but it’s never as straightforward as that. We learned this year how difficult it is to win a league; that might help them appreciate how difficult it will be to win a double, and how difficult it will be in years to come. This opportunity may not present itself again. So, they have to maximise that.”
As the form team in the league, Sligo might have gone into this one as solid favourites were it not for the unfortunate and widely-publicised absence through suspension of key men Richie Ryan and Matthew Blinkhorn.
With defender Aidan Price having been given the all clear, Shamrock Rovers will give striker Gary Twigg a late fitness test on a hamstring problem — and should the 50-goal man come through, it might be enough to tilt the odds back in favour of the Hoops.
“In many people’s eyes, Sligo will be favourites, and maybe they deserve that tag,” says O’Neill. “If all they had to show for their season was the EA Sports Cup, maybe there would be a sense of disappointment in their group. Equally, we don’t want to finish without the cup either. The cup is special to Rovers supporters. Since I came here, that has been emphasised to me in many different ways.
“Supporters tend to remember the cup better than the league in a sense: it’s a day out and sticks in the memory longer. In the league, the fans go through the ups and downs and the heartache which the managers and players go through as well — certainly the rollercoaster we went through in the final quarter, the supporters felt that deeply as well.
“Now, they can approach the final with a better mood and hopefully we can give them a day to remember.”
Whatever happens tomorrow, O’Neill believes his side have already proved themselves this season — even if some critics still have reservations in light of the stumbling manner in which they crossed the finishing line in the league.
“All we’re concerned about is ourselves,” he says. “People will always have opinions about style of play and personnel, but we can’t control that. I sometimes wonder is there an agenda but that’s beyond our control.
“We’ve have had a good experience in Europe, good experience in the league, got to the semi-final of the other cup competition and we are in the cup final. There is not an awful lot more a team can do in one season.”
SLIGO ROVERS: Kelly; Keane, Peers, Lauchlan, Davoren; Boco, Ventre, Russell, Ndo, McCabe; Doyle.
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Mannus; Flynn, Sives, Price, Stevens; Rice; Dennehy, Chambers, Turner, Stewart; Twigg.
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