TWO IMAGES STOOD out after Shelbourne’s 1-0 win away to St Patrick’s Athletic on Monday night.
The first was when Damien Duff dropped to his knees and bowed down in front of the travelling supporters at Richmond Park. Those rival fans using this as an attempt to point out his hypocrisy over his row with Stephen Bradley about winning with class were misguided.
The Shels boss had no issue with his Shamrock Rovers counterpart celebrating the previous Friday’s 2-1 victory at Tolka Park by gathering his squad in front of the away end and saluting them.
As also became clear after further inquiries over the course of this week, it wasn’t even just that the Rovers players chose to blare the Mauro Picotto tune Komodo (a Shels anthem) from their dressing room while Duff’s players began the post-mortem that was the sole source of ire. Other issues along the corridor that houses both dressing rooms, like switching on and off lights and banging doors, was deemed a bit excessive.
Duff salutes the Shels fans. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Regardless, the row among two men who have a shared history as colleagues at Rovers and then League of Ireland rivals that has led to their relationship breaking down was old news by full-time on Monday.
That is when the second image, captured just seconds before Duff saluted the fans, caught the eye. Duff made a beeline for Paddy Barrett and gripped the centre back with a kind of intense, teeth-grinding hug.
The big Waterford man, who was tied down to a new contract in the weeks prior to winning the Premier Division season, has endured a rotten campaign with injury, a torn quad during an 11 v 11 training game ruling him out for 11 weeks, but his return to fitness just before the mid-season break could not have been more timely.
The big man is back and Duff loves him.
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Duff embraces Paddy Barrett. Dan Clohessy / INPHO
Dan Clohessy / INPHO / INPHO
“I keep on saying the dirty side but it’s a beautiful side, I love it. I feel like we lost that, we went away from that side and just to show that side again I think that was the most pleasing thing,” Barrett said of Shels’ ability to put their bodies on the line for the win over Pat’s in the second half, after outclassing them in the first.
“Look, nobody said it to me, nobody’s pulled it up. I just think it did leave us. And I think that’s why obviously results haven’t been going our way. We’ve been conceding sloppy goals, individual mistakes, collectively. That’s not us. We grind out results when we need to. Hopefully going forward we can still keep on showing that side when it’s needed.”
No wonder Duff looked so enthused to have Barrett back in the heart of defence.
The European draws over the following two days also brought into focus a new dynamic to the season for three of the most high profile managers in the country: Duff, Bradley, and Stephen Kenny at St Pat’s.
Even before they drew Linfield in the first round of Champions League qualifying, Duff didn’t agree with the assertion that a positive European campaign could energise his players and lead to improved performances domestically.
He bristled at such a suggestion and instead chose to put the emphasis on players needing to have the mentality to go and attack every game regardless. Duff already turned down one approach from an English club to discuss their vacant manager’s position earlier this season and masterminding the kind of European success that Kenny and Bradley have proven capable of will surely increase the profile of just how impressive a job he has done at Tolka Park.
Beating Linfield ensures three ties as a minimum in Europe (due to the champions’ path) and would mean the least Shels can look forward to is a play-off to reach the league phase of the Uefa Conference League. That is the kind of forward thinking everyone except managers and players talk about.
Duff’s stature as a player with Chelsea and others in the Premier League, not to mention 100 caps for the Republic of Ireland, was never something he sought to use a shortcut. He has been earning his stripes since the 6am training sessions with Shamrock Rovers’ U15s and there is no doubt that taking Shels into the league phase of European football would bring a different kind of spotlight.
Bradley got a sense of that when Millwall came looking for him in the days before Rovers played Chelsea just before last Christmas. They still had the knockout stages of the Conference League to come and a repeat of such an achievement would feel even greater this year given there is no room for error once they start in the second qualifying of the competition against either Cliftonville or St Joseph’s of Gibraltar.
Other job opportunities have also been passed on by Bradley and he spoke with Off The Ball in a series of interviews recently about ending a video interview with the FAI top brass over the then vacant senior men’s manager’s job because they were 15 minutes late for the call.
That was down to basic respect but also a man who knows his value, and a trust in his ability borne out be achievements that others are aware of it too. He’s only just turned 40 and could potentially take charge in a third European group/league with the same club that he has on course for a fifth league title in six seasons.
By any metric that is a clear indication of a managerial star on the rise, and masterminding more tactically astute and confident performances in Europe will only serve to reinforce the sense that Bradley is someone whose story has barely begun.
So what of the post-Ireland chapter for Kenny?
It definitely felt as thought Europe enthused him as he began to adapt to life with St Pat’s back in the League of Ireland. Some of the performances and results harked back – somewhat – to the days at Dundalk ahead of their Europa League adventure in 2016. Mason Melia stood out to such a degree that Everton, Celtic and Tottenham Hotspur all firmed up their interest, with the latter eventually agreeing a transfer that could eventually rise to €4 million for a striker who is still only 17.
Kenny took St Pat’s to the Conference League play-off against Istanbul Basaksehir and, had they not lost 2-0 in Turkey after a goalless firs leg in Dublin, would have been the first Irish club that weren’t champions to reach the group/league phase.
Pat’s are at a low ebb after Monday’s defeat and while those two images involving Duff and Barrett stood out there was a third that also told a story as Kenny and his players went on a lap of appreciation around a ground that seemed restless and frustrated.
Lithuania’s FC Hegelmann are first up and the Saints really could do with a repeat of last year to provide the impetus required for a strong conclusion to this season.
“It definitely helped us because the tempo and level you were playing and you were bringing that into your league form so it definitely was advantageous, but there’s no guarantees you’re replicating that,” Kenny said on Monday night.
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Duff, Kenny and Bradley face different battles with Europe on horizon
TWO IMAGES STOOD out after Shelbourne’s 1-0 win away to St Patrick’s Athletic on Monday night.
The first was when Damien Duff dropped to his knees and bowed down in front of the travelling supporters at Richmond Park. Those rival fans using this as an attempt to point out his hypocrisy over his row with Stephen Bradley about winning with class were misguided.
The Shels boss had no issue with his Shamrock Rovers counterpart celebrating the previous Friday’s 2-1 victory at Tolka Park by gathering his squad in front of the away end and saluting them.
As also became clear after further inquiries over the course of this week, it wasn’t even just that the Rovers players chose to blare the Mauro Picotto tune Komodo (a Shels anthem) from their dressing room while Duff’s players began the post-mortem that was the sole source of ire. Other issues along the corridor that houses both dressing rooms, like switching on and off lights and banging doors, was deemed a bit excessive.
Regardless, the row among two men who have a shared history as colleagues at Rovers and then League of Ireland rivals that has led to their relationship breaking down was old news by full-time on Monday.
That is when the second image, captured just seconds before Duff saluted the fans, caught the eye. Duff made a beeline for Paddy Barrett and gripped the centre back with a kind of intense, teeth-grinding hug.
The big Waterford man, who was tied down to a new contract in the weeks prior to winning the Premier Division season, has endured a rotten campaign with injury, a torn quad during an 11 v 11 training game ruling him out for 11 weeks, but his return to fitness just before the mid-season break could not have been more timely.
The big man is back and Duff loves him.
“I keep on saying the dirty side but it’s a beautiful side, I love it. I feel like we lost that, we went away from that side and just to show that side again I think that was the most pleasing thing,” Barrett said of Shels’ ability to put their bodies on the line for the win over Pat’s in the second half, after outclassing them in the first.
“Look, nobody said it to me, nobody’s pulled it up. I just think it did leave us. And I think that’s why obviously results haven’t been going our way. We’ve been conceding sloppy goals, individual mistakes, collectively. That’s not us. We grind out results when we need to. Hopefully going forward we can still keep on showing that side when it’s needed.”
No wonder Duff looked so enthused to have Barrett back in the heart of defence.
The European draws over the following two days also brought into focus a new dynamic to the season for three of the most high profile managers in the country: Duff, Bradley, and Stephen Kenny at St Pat’s.
Even before they drew Linfield in the first round of Champions League qualifying, Duff didn’t agree with the assertion that a positive European campaign could energise his players and lead to improved performances domestically.
He bristled at such a suggestion and instead chose to put the emphasis on players needing to have the mentality to go and attack every game regardless. Duff already turned down one approach from an English club to discuss their vacant manager’s position earlier this season and masterminding the kind of European success that Kenny and Bradley have proven capable of will surely increase the profile of just how impressive a job he has done at Tolka Park.
Beating Linfield ensures three ties as a minimum in Europe (due to the champions’ path) and would mean the least Shels can look forward to is a play-off to reach the league phase of the Uefa Conference League. That is the kind of forward thinking everyone except managers and players talk about.
Duff’s stature as a player with Chelsea and others in the Premier League, not to mention 100 caps for the Republic of Ireland, was never something he sought to use a shortcut. He has been earning his stripes since the 6am training sessions with Shamrock Rovers’ U15s and there is no doubt that taking Shels into the league phase of European football would bring a different kind of spotlight.
Bradley got a sense of that when Millwall came looking for him in the days before Rovers played Chelsea just before last Christmas. They still had the knockout stages of the Conference League to come and a repeat of such an achievement would feel even greater this year given there is no room for error once they start in the second qualifying of the competition against either Cliftonville or St Joseph’s of Gibraltar.
Other job opportunities have also been passed on by Bradley and he spoke with Off The Ball in a series of interviews recently about ending a video interview with the FAI top brass over the then vacant senior men’s manager’s job because they were 15 minutes late for the call.
That was down to basic respect but also a man who knows his value, and a trust in his ability borne out be achievements that others are aware of it too. He’s only just turned 40 and could potentially take charge in a third European group/league with the same club that he has on course for a fifth league title in six seasons.
By any metric that is a clear indication of a managerial star on the rise, and masterminding more tactically astute and confident performances in Europe will only serve to reinforce the sense that Bradley is someone whose story has barely begun.
So what of the post-Ireland chapter for Kenny?
It definitely felt as thought Europe enthused him as he began to adapt to life with St Pat’s back in the League of Ireland. Some of the performances and results harked back – somewhat – to the days at Dundalk ahead of their Europa League adventure in 2016. Mason Melia stood out to such a degree that Everton, Celtic and Tottenham Hotspur all firmed up their interest, with the latter eventually agreeing a transfer that could eventually rise to €4 million for a striker who is still only 17.
Kenny took St Pat’s to the Conference League play-off against Istanbul Basaksehir and, had they not lost 2-0 in Turkey after a goalless firs leg in Dublin, would have been the first Irish club that weren’t champions to reach the group/league phase.
Pat’s are at a low ebb after Monday’s defeat and while those two images involving Duff and Barrett stood out there was a third that also told a story as Kenny and his players went on a lap of appreciation around a ground that seemed restless and frustrated.
Lithuania’s FC Hegelmann are first up and the Saints really could do with a repeat of last year to provide the impetus required for a strong conclusion to this season.
“It definitely helped us because the tempo and level you were playing and you were bringing that into your league form so it definitely was advantageous, but there’s no guarantees you’re replicating that,” Kenny said on Monday night.
“You’ve got to earn the right to do that.”
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League of Ireland Paddy Barrett Shelbourne Soccer THE BEAT