SHAMROCK ROVERS MANAGER Stephen Bradley has backed Austrian striker Orhan Vojic to deliver goals as the season progresses.
Rovers were somewhat goal-shy last season – although they conceded the same number of goals as Cork City last season, Rovers finished 15 points adrift having scored 14 goals fewer – and new signing Vojic has been identified as one of the solutions to boosting the ‘Goals For’ column.
Last night’s 0-0 draw against Dundalk was Vojic’s first start of the season, and he failed to make an impact: having seen a volley deflected over the bar in the second minute, the striker spent the rest of the game toiling to little impact, before making way for Dan Carr just before the hour mark.
He has, however, been struggling with a rib injury, and Bradley believes that the striker will soon find form.
“He has been struggling [with a rib injury] and you can see that with his fitness and a little bit of sharpness.
“He will only get fitter and stronger as the season goes on, and I believe Orhan will score goals.
“Alan [Mannus] has had three saves to make in four games. We have been very good defensively, and the other side of the game will come.”
Rovers midfielder Jack Byrne, meanwhile, agreed that the draw against Dundalk was a fair result, although says that his side’s performance was not motivated by atoning for Monday’s defeat to Bohemians – exacerbated as it was by Aaron Greene’s controversial first-half sending-off.
“It was a good game”, Byrne told The42 after the game.
“Two good teams, going head-to-head, so it was a good spectacle for Irish football.
A point against the champions, you can’t turn our nose up at that, and a draw was probably a fair result. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the performance on Monday. It was difficult to go down to ten men, and it is what it is. We cracked on today.
“Definintely not [about proving something after Monday's performance]. But we wanted to show to the fans that we care; it obviously hurt us getting beaten in a derby game.
“I thought we were the better team with 10 men, and we put in a good performance tonight.”
His manager agreed.
“I thought we were very good on Monday. The referee took it out of our hands. We’ve looked at it back: first 30 minutes we dominated the game, the sending off knocks us and the last 15/20 minutes we were good.
“There wasn’t much I didn’t like about the performance on Monday.”
Rovers have been tipped as the best-equipped to challenge Dundalk this season, but Bradley believes that the truest test of these credentials is not necessarily their direct clashes with the champions.
“Time will tell. Our problem hasn’t been the head-to-heads in big games; that hasn’t been our issue. Our issue has been week-to-week, so time will tell on that.”
Rovers’ attention now switches immediately to Monday’s home game with Finn Harps, which offers an early-season chance to establish a four-point gap over the champions.
“It’s up to us to try and stay ahead of them”, says Byrne.
“We have a game on Monday and it’s good to get that quick turn around and a chance to get a win against Finn Harps.”
