This is just the start’
AFTER what he described as the ‘biggest night of my career’, Gary Rogers is confident that even better days lie ahead.
Due to turn 35 in September and with almost 500 League of Ireland appearances under his belt, the Meathman is easily the most experienced member of Stephen Kenny’s squad.
In a glittering career spanning nine clubs he has won all there is to win in the domestic game bar the EA Sports Cup. It looked like he might be set to top all of those when he earned a call-up to the Republic of Ireland squad earlier this year.
While an international cap or a call-up to Euro 2016 just eluded him, Rogers is now targeting his own European adventure with the Champions League at the forefront of his mind following last Tuesday’s epic victory over BATE Borisov in Tallaght Stadium.
‘There’s nothing like it. There has never been a day like it, even cup finals or whatever. To know that you’re guaranteed to go into the group stages of the Europa League and that the holy grail of the Champions League is still there for you is incredible. They have qualified last year and we’ve played them off the park tonight and it’s there for us now.
‘Absolutely, there’s no doubt about it that we can do it now,’ he said.
‘You don’t care who you get in the draw but whoever it is, you’ve got a chance. No one gave us a chance here really. I don’t think people believed that we were going to do it. We got a bit of a pasting over there but we came out of the game with the tie still alive and we knew we could play better and we proved it here today.
‘It’s incredible. It’s hard to know what to say. I don’t think words can describe what has happened.’
While few expected a 3-0 Dundalk win on the night, Rogers revealed he had a strange feeling about the result in the build-up to the game after pointing out that manager Stephen Kenny had achieved an identical outcome while in charge of Bohemians 13 years ago.
‘The way the game went, it couldn’t have went any better for us in terms of the game plan. We got the goal and kept a clean sheet and when we got second goal then we knew they’d have to push on.
‘I always felt we’d nick it. There was something about the 3-0 scoreline that the gaffer had with Bohs when they beat them and that was sticking in my head all week that we could do this and the way the game panned out was brilliant.’
Rogers hailed the result as ‘terrific’ and said he was hopeful it would earn Dundalk and League of Ireland footballers in general more respect now going forward.
‘We have to do this in order to get respect in this country. People don’t really pay much attention to the league but when you go and beat a team like BATE and go to the group stages of the Europa League at a minimum, if not the Champions League, then people stand up and pay attention and hopefully they’ll say ‘these must be good’.
‘It’s terrific for all the players. People are fighting for the respect they deserve. There’s good players in our league and good players in our team and it’s a great day for everyone in the whole league,’ said the goalkeeper.