SHAMROCK ROVERS MANAGER Stephen Bradley thanked both sets of fans for their support of him and his family during last night’s 2-0 victory over Dundalk.
Bradley revealed on Thursday that he considered walking away from the game after a small number of Cork City fans mocked the fact his young son Josh was diagnosed with leukemia last year.
Cork City subsequently banned the supporters – who were chanting from a nearby pub, rather than from inside Turner’s Cross – for life, and Bradley reported the incident to Gardaí.
Bradley thanked the wider Irish football community for their support in the wake of the incident, and last night’s game at Tallaght Stadium was bookended by chants of ‘There’s only one Josh Bradley’ from the home support and the travelling Dundalk fans.
Speaking after the game, Bradley expressed his gratitude to both sets of supporters, saying two-goal matchwinner Aaron Greene gave his man-of-the-match award to Josh after the game.
“It’s incredible, obviously from Shamrock Rovers fans but also Dundalk fans as well, I thought it was incredible support they showed Josh”, said Bradley. “A massive thank you to both sets of fans. He’s in the dressing room now and Aaron has given him his award, he’s walking around like he’s won it. It’s finished off a difficult week for him and it’s nice he’s in there happy and goes home with a trophy.
“Dundalk fans brilliant, I said yesterday, that fans from around the country, Bohemians fans, Derry fans, Dundalk, Drogheda, Cork, all over the country, they contacted me through letters and email and that’s truly what this country is about. We all know it’s a small minority. The support that has been shown from around has been fantastic and we can’t thank them enough.”
Rovers’ 2-0 win returned them to the top of the league, in spite of playing almost half of the game with 10 men after Ronan Finn was dismissed for a last-man tackle on Rayhaan Tulloch. It was Rovers’ seventh red card of the season, and fourth in two games after seeing three players sent off against Cork City a week earlier.
Bradley believed his side learned from that experience.
“Last week’s experience has definitely helped us tonight. We felt we should have come away with at least a draw last week, even going down to eight. We looked back at the game and we knew what we needed to tidy up, and you could see when we went down to 10 the spaces that were there last week weren’t there tonight. We got our rewards but, yeah, the experience of last week definitely helped.”
Dundalk have the opposite problem. Last night was the fifth time this season they have played against 10 men, and they have won only two of those games, drawing one and losing the other two.
“It’s frustrating without a doubt”, said manager Stephen O’Donnell. “We’re not exploiting it to put it bluntly. The principle and the concept of the game needs to be better when we go down to ten men. It’s what we speak about, the second is the prime example of not playing in a situation of keeping it in a small area which ten men want to do, they’re happy when you keep it in a small area and are not switching the play. They got the goal on the counter off the back of it.”