ROVERS ON A ROLL
Easter is good to champions Hoops
STEPHEN BRADLEY hailed his second-half stars after they rounded off the Easter weekend with another three-point haul.
Incredibly, all of the Hoops’ 13 goals this season – including three in their President’s Cup win over St Patrick’s Athletic – have come after half-time.
That was the case last Friday when they bagged three against Bohs and both their goals against Waterford last night came following the interval.
Darragh Burns and Roberto Lopes scored either side of Robbie Mccourt’s deflected free kick.
And afterwards, Bradley admitted that he would like to see some more clinical play in the opening period.
“It’ll be nice alright,” he said. “It would be nice to put one or two of them away.”
Rovers had their chances to go in ahead at the RSC but Aaron Greene missed a header from five yards and Markus Poom also spurned a glorious opportunity.
It was left to Burns to open the scoring on 55 minutes, when he raced behind Grant Horton and onto Poom’s long ball forward.
The on-loan star skipped around Sam Sargeant and slid the ball calmly home from an angle.
When Mccourt’s 20-yard free kick nine minutes later took a deflection off the wall and bounced in off the post, it looked like the hosts might claim a point. But Lopes scored a stunning diving header to take the points back up the M9.
The defender, who came off the bench to replace the injured Lee Grace after just half an hour, showed serious determination to beat Horton to Cathal Noonan’s cross. It meant Bradley could leave the RSC with a smile on his face, knowing that his side had taken advantage of results elsewhere yesterday.
But he would have been even happier if he had a goal or two to reflect on during his half-time team talk.
“We should have been two up in the first half. Aaron missed a sitter of a header and Markus has one six yards out with his left foot and he tries to take an extra touch,” he said. “We should score both. So that’s frustrating because if you go in 2-0 it’s a different game completely.
“What it does show is this team keeps believing and we’ve shown that throughout the years. They stay focused and we know we’ll create chances.
“The most pleasing aspect is that we create a lot of chances. I think our xg is the highest in the league by some distance. So that shows you we create chances.
“If you were only creating one or two a game, you’d be worried, but we know we create a lot of chances.”
The chances for Greene and Poom aside, it was a first half devoid of any great entertainment and the 3,681-strong crowd had little to cheer.
But the game did open up in the second half with plenty more goalmouth action at either end.
Aside from the three successful efforts, the impressive Graham Burke came close with a left-foot curler that brought out a fine save from Sam Sargeant.
“It was an important three points,” Bradley continued. “We know how important Friday-mondays are, especially after the big game on Friday and all the hype around it.”