Lopes joy as high-flying Rovers dig out derby win

Five points clear at the top of the League of Ireland with eight games to go, life is good at Shamrock Rovers. File image. 

SSE Airtricty League Premier Division

Shamrock Rovers 1  Bohemians 0

Five points clear at the top of the League of Ireland with eight games to go, life is good at Shamrock Rovers. Stephen Bradley’s team extended their cushion over second placed Bohemians on Saturday thanks to a scrappy 1-0 win at Tallaght Stadium, a game light on quality moments despite it’s top-table billing.

Not that anyone at Rovers will be too perturbed. The club are now in pole position to break the recent Dundalk/Cork City duopoly by landing a first league title since 2011, and have a home game against Italian giants AC Milan lurking around the corner in the Europa League second qualifying round.

Rovers defender Roberto Lopes, who swapped Phibsboro for Tallaght in 2017, delivered a man-of-the-match performance against his former side, and is determined to keep the feelgood factor going.

“It gives us a bit of breathing space but we can’t get complacent,” Lopes said.

“We knew it was a massive challenge for us, to get a result and keep this winning feeling going."

 There’s been a great feeling around the club at the moment and so just keeping the wins coming just makes it feel better.” 

Rovers needed just four minutes to breach the Gypsies defence in Tallaght, but it wasn’t exactly champagne football. A Graham Burke cross went all the way through and forced a good save from Stephen McGuinness, but in the resulting scramble Andy Lyons’ attempted clearance rebounded off the boot of Danny Lafferty and bundled into the net.

The remaining 85 minutes boiled down to an arm wrestle in which both teams struggled to showcase their attacking strengths, Rovers letting a slew of half-chances go begging before digging in to hold off a late Bohemians rally, including a decent penalty shout when Danny Grant skipped into the box and collided with Liam Scales. In a game of fine margins, Rovers held on.

“Bohs have been fantastic all season and what they are really good at is wearing teams down so we had to match their workrate, first and foremost,” Lopes added.

“That’s important in any game but especially in a derby, you have to outwork them, you have to go toe-to-toe with them, you have to match them and then show what you can do on the ball.

“I thought we did that really well in the first half. Second half, we were under the cosh a little bit but we dug it out. There are different ways to win games, it’s not every week that it’s going to be pretty.” 

It certainly wasn’t pretty, but no-one in the Rovers camp will have been complaining. Their charge towards the league title shows no sign of slowing down.

SHAMROCK ROVERS: Mannus; Scales, Lopes, Grace; Finn, McEneff, O’Neill, Lafferty (Farrugia 80); Byrne, Greene (Marshall 89), Burke (Watts 73).

Substitutes not used: Pohls, Williams, Oluwa, O’Brien Booked: Grace 35, O’Neill 72, Lafferty 77 Scorer: Lafferty 4.

BOHEMIANS: McGuinness; Lyons, Casey, Finnerty, Breslin; Buckley, Ward (Mandroiu 66), Lunney (Devoy 77); Twardek, Wright (Corcoran 86), Grant.

Substitutes not used: Talbot, Kelly, Levingston,, Omochere.

Booked: Lunney 29, Finnerty 32, Buckley 90+5 

Referee: Derek Tomney (Dublin)