STEPHEN BRADLEY WAS in the shower when Shamrock Rovers were about to win the first Premier Division title of his reign.
Now he wants to soak in the glory of delivering a three-in-a-row by going toe-to-toe with rivals Derry City in front of a packed Tallaght Stadium on Sunday week.
The Hoops could be crowned champions on Monday night if the Candystripes fail to win away to Sligo Rovers.
Bradley says he will not tune in, instead focusing on the visit of Gent in the Europa Conference League on Thursday, but insists his preference is for Ruaidhrí Higgins’ side to ensure there is still something to play for.
“I hope they win to be honest and bring it here and we’ll have a right go at each other and see what happens,” he said after last night’s 4-1 win over St Patrick’s Athletic put them on the brink of another championship.
“Bring it here and we can go for each other and see who comes out on top. No, I won’t watch it, I genuinely won’t watch it. I never watch it.”
It was the same in 2020 when Bohemians were beaten at Dalymount Park by Finn Harps to hand Rovers the trophy with four games to spare.
Assistant Glenn Cronin was less blasé about the situation.
“I was in the shower and had loads of missed calls. I came out, Glenn asked ‘are you watching?’ I said ‘no, I’m going to bed’,” Bradley recalled.
“He said ‘you’re not going to bed, put on the game’. There were five minutes left and he was saying ‘I don’t know how you do that?’”
Even if Sligo should do Rovers a favour Bradley insists it will take none of the gloss off the achievements.
“Ah, you win leagues [on the pitch] anyway. You’ve worked so hard to get to this point. If we win it Monday, we win it Monday and we will be just as happy as Sunday, but it will be nice coming here on Sunday with first and second going for each other.”
After four minutes last night, it did not look as if their procession to another title would be so straight forward.
But after quickly overcoming Serge Atakayi’s early opener Rovers eventually cruised to a comfortable victory in front of 7,469 supporters – an added sense of enjoyment given some of the question marks following the 1-1 draw away to Drogheda United last weekend.
“It was more that everyone outside was making this something it wasn’t, making us something we’re not. Just having little sly pop at us [about being tired] and not understanding what these players have done this year is hard to do, that’s why it hasn’t been done that often. So I was delighted the way we performed the way we did and shut a few people up.”
Rovers maintained their unbeaten home record in the league this season – they’ve dropped points just twice at Tallaght Stadium – by again falling behind.
“We spoke during the week and said to the players there’s a lot of noise outside about the title race and this and that and to focus on what we do, be calm and focus on what we do,” Bradley explained.
“It’s got us to this point, to being the best team in the country and just stay with it no matter what happens and when we went one down, you could see there was no panic, no deer in the headlights moments.
“It was calm, we do what we do, we played our way back into the game and we got our rewards.”
The biggest one of all is surely set to follow.
