David Sneyd reports from Letná Stadium, Prague

STEPHEN BRADLEY RUED defensive lapses in concentration as Shamrock Rovers began their Uefa Conference League campaign a 4-1 defeat to Sparta Prague.

The result leaves the Hoops in 32nd place out of 36 teams in the table ahead of the visit of Celje to Tallaght Stadium on 23 October. The Slovenians will arrive to Dublin full of confidence after a fine 3-1 home win over AEK Athens put them sixth.

For Bradley, he will demand his side don’t switch off as they did for two corners in the minutes either side of half-time that completely took this contest away from them. They were on the back foot just after the half-hour mark when Sparta took the lead following a miskick from captain Roberto Lopes in the box.

“Sparta were the better team but we’re really disappointed with goals we gave away, especially the two corners, they were really poor,” the Rovers boss said.

“Pico’s mistake was very unlike him because he’s been brilliant. Up to that point they did not create any opportunities so we were really disappointed to concede the goals we did. Especially the one before half-time. If you go in 1-0, make your subs and it can become a different game. But the goals we gave away were really soft, really poor.”

Bradley opted to leave Dylan Watts, Graham Burke and Danny Mandroiu on the bench from the start, preferring to give John McGovern a start alongside Rory Gaffney in attack and utilise Darragh Nugent and Aaron McEneff in the centre with Matt Healy.

Bradley said the changes were with a view to Sunday’s FAI Cup semi-final with Kerry FC and managing the minutes of important players in a game here that he anticipated would be a slog.

“You’ve got to understand that it’s about the players loads and even it out over the course of the few weeks. We knew tonight was going to be a game with a lot of defensive work. Once the subs that came in, if you start them it’s a heavy load with Sunday in mind. Sunday had a big bearing on the selection.

“We were quite comfortable in the game. Sparta had the possession which we knew would be the case for a period of time,” Bradley added.

“I can’t remember a chance created by them. Other than that we were quite comfortable. Pico miskicked it and they score. We know they are dangerous from set plays and we switched off from the corner, lost the runner and we got punished.

“It was [a killer]. We spoke about the sets and how important they were. At this level you can’t get away with not doing your job at set plays and for that goal (third) we didn’t do our job.

“We were sloppy in our decision making. We are experienced enough to know at this level that if you switch off and don’t do your job, you get punished and we got punished.”

Bradley’s counterpart, Sparta boss Brian Priske, said it was an “almost perfect night” for his side and admitted he was disappointed at conceding a goal when Mandroiu scored what turned out to be only a consolation goal.

The Rovers boss praised the performance of McGovern, a summer arrival, although admitted that if Aaron Greene had not picked up an illness over the weekend he would not opted to use him instead.

“It’s a big step up for John. We knew that before the game. Maybe if Aaron is not sick, it’s not one we throw him into right now. We signed John with a view to long term. He’s learning everything.

“Tonight is a really big step up for him where he’s came from. We’ve signed him with the long term in mind. Not just the short term. Maybe if we had certain personnel available he wouldn’t have been thrown in for that game. The qualities we have we really like. When he gets used to what we do, we’ll definitely see that.”