Galway United turn attention to League of Ireland clash with Shamrock Rovers
Tallaght Stadium won't hold any fear for Galway United this Friday night when John Caulfield takes his side to the home of the league champions, looking for a positive result to take into the international break (8pm).
It is a barely believable statistic, but that doesn't make it any less true: United are now into a fourth decade without a win away to Shamrock Rovers in the league, their last victory over the Hoops coming way back in 1994 when Ollie Neary and Ronan Killeen scored in a 2-1 win in the RDS.
Things might be slowly turning for the Tribesmen, however: United have drawn three of their last four visits to Rovers, a scoreless draw back in May last year; and two 1-1 draws in 2024 when it was the Hoops who needed late equalisers to take a point from each game.
While United's most recent visit was a defeat, it was to a 75th minute Dylan Watts goal for a 1-0 win for the home side, so the visitors to the west Dublin venue on Friday night shouldn't lack for confidence.
“It was important to get the win,” Caulfield said of Monday night's roller-coaster 4-3 victory over Waterford at Eamonn Deacy Park.
“Both teams were playing, there was some great football at times, it was a good win for us. That's important. This week is now all about recovery and we'll go to Tallaght and look to get a result, we'll possibly look at making a couple of changes, just try to freshen up a little bit,” he said.
One change that is guaranteed will be in the dugout, a place Caulfield won't be after his dismissal during Monday night's win, which leaves Richie Holland and Mark Herrick patrolling the sideline.
It didn't cost us in the game. It was annoying for myself because, you know, you don't want to get sent off.”
The league takes a break after this weekend until the Easter weekend, and Friday's game comes at the end of a hectic spell of five games in 23 days, and the message that will be drilled into the players is to keep their concentration for the 90-plus minutes.
“Maybe people criticise us that we've lacked it in the last couple of games, but we dug in against Waterford and we need to do that in every game.”