Shamrock Rovers maestro Matt Healy sets sights on double honours

MATT FINISH: Matt Healy of Shamrock Rovers with his SSE Airtricity / SWI Player of the Month Award for September 2025 at Tallaght Stadium in Dublin. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Matt Healy already has one significant honour in the bag, but his plan now is to help Shamrock Rovers land two more in the coming weeks.

Healy was named the SSE Airtricity/SWI Player of the Month for September this week and on Friday night he is hoping to lead Rovers to the positive result they need against Shelbourne which would see them dethrone their opponents and reclaim the Premier Division crown.

“You can see the standard of the league is very good this year. And it's going to be getting better over the next few years as well so, it's a privilege to be named Player of the Month,” began the 23-year-old.

“It's going well at the moment. We're not getting ahead of ourselves. We still haven't won anything at this moment in time.

“But at the start of the year, our aim was to qualify for Europe, win the league and win the Cup.

“We qualified for Europe now, but we're in a good position in all three.” 

They would’ve won the league last Sunday, shortly before their 6-1 FAI Cup semi-final victory over Kerry, if it wasn’t for Derry City’s last-gasp winner against Sligo Rovers, but Healy believes winning it themselves would be better.

“100%. 100%. At home in Tallaght, winning the league would be special. And we have the opportunity to do that now on Friday,” says Healy, who joined the club at the beginning of the year from Belgian side Francs Borains.

”I'd done my time in Europe at that stage. I gained experience, and I wanted to move on. And the gaffer had gotten in touch with me here and I really thought that was the best move for me.

“He said he'd trust me throughout the year and play me so that was the most important thing for me to come home here. And Shamrock Rovers is a massive club.

“As a footballer, you want to be part of a team that's successful so that was the biggest attractiveness to come home.”

Once the league is won, attention may then turn to completing a league and cup double with none other than Cork City - Healy’s former club, whom he won a First Division title with – standing in their way in the FAI Cup Final at the Aviva Stadium.

“I know a lot of people there and players. And I have a good mate there as well, Darragh Crowley,” added the Cork native, who won’t be expecting a friendly reception from his former teammate.

“I'd say he'd leave a marker on me, to be honest,” he joked.

“Me and Darragh are fairly close. We're always in touch. Golfing here or there so that's good.

“I have a good few friends and family here watching the games so I'm sure they'll be up there on the 9th of November.” 

But will they be seated in the Shamrock Rovers or Cork City end?

“I think they'll be in the family section. I don't think they'll be in any end. Neutrals, yeah,” believes Healy, “It'll be strange, but we just have to go out there and do the job. As long as we're in the cup final, that's the most important thing.

“The opposition is, we can't change that. Whether it was Cork or Pats last week or whoever it was, we'll go into it trying to win it. And hopefully that'll be the case.

“It (winning the double) would be brilliant. I don't think it's been done in the club for a good few years. And it's a very rare thing that happens anyway in the League of Ireland.

“To do that and to write a bit of history would be brilliant this year.”