Clancy insists Drogs under no pressure against Rovers
DROGHEDA United are just five wins away from FAI Cup glory, but that’s a bit like Jeremy Clarkson telling his TV quiz contestants they’re only 15 questions away from winning £1 million.
Despite performing strongly in the First Division this year, Tim Clancy’s charges are given little hope of upsetting the odds when they host in-form Shamrock Rovers in a first-round tie at United Park on Friday (7.45pm).
However, while the manager would have preferred an easier test at the earliest stage of the competition, he feels that Drogheda are in a no-lose situation against the Hoops, who of course are managed by one of Drogheda’s 2007 League-winning heroes in Stephen Bradley.
‘This is a game that looks after itself and Rovers would see this as a potential banana skin for them and there’s no pressure on our lads at all,’ the Drogs boss said, speaking on Monday afternoon.
‘It’s a free dart for us and if we miss the board no one cares, but we have to get it into players’ heads that we want it to be competitive. They will come and try to dominate possession, so we have to set up to deal with that and hopefully give them problems when we are on the attack.
‘Hopefully we can catch them on the hop and perform the way we did in the second half against Galway, but if we don’t do that then it will be tough for us and it could be a sore one.’
Bradley watched all but the last two minutes of last Friday’s 2-2 with Galway from the stand and it’s unlikely that he will rest too many of his frontline players as Rovers try to end a 31-year wait for Cup glory.
Twelve months ago he made only three changes for the firstround tie against non-League Glenville and Rovers won 1-0, eventually going on to the semi-finals where they lost to Dundalk in a replay.
If that teaches Drogheda anything, it’s that Rovers can be slow starters in this competition and a full-blooded performance would give the Boynesiders an outside chance of causing an upset.
Rule changes this year mean that replays will only take place in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, so in the event of a draw after 90 minutes on Friday then there would be extra time and penalties if necessary.
However, Drogheda will have to find a way to win without their talisman Sean Brennan who serves a one-match suspension, having picked up his yellow card of the season against Wexford recently.
Also unlikely to feature is Gareth McCaffrey who suffered a badly swollen ankle in training last week and missed the Galway match, while Stephen Meaney is still recovering from a workplace accident. However, skipper Jake Hyland looks set to recover from illness and Conor Kane should be fit despite limping off early on Friday night.
‘Conor jarred his knee as he landed and got a bit of a fright, but he trained today (Monday),’ Clancy reported.
‘Jake Hyland still has a chest infection and didn’t train, but he will train on Wednesday and should be fine.
‘In fact it might do him the world of good to have bit of a rest because of the high energy levels he plays with and the fact he’s played every game for us.’
Looking back on the 2-2 draw with Galway, where Drogheda recovered from a disastrous start to rescue a draw, Clancy remarked: ‘When you look at our first-half performance, we were miles off and ended up going in two down at half-time, so we look at it as a point gained. It was a bigger game for Galway than us and we’re still six ahead of them, four ahead of Longford and two points off second place with four games left.
‘If you’d offered us that at the start of the season we would have bitten your hand off.
‘Galway have the biggest budget and are full-time and by rights we should not be anywhere near them in the league, and I can’t praise the players enough.
‘We didn’t go ranting and raving at half-time. We just tweaked a few little things and you’d swear it was a different team in the second half.
‘We got the distance between the lines a bit tighter and it brought us a lot more into the game.
‘Doyler produced another great goal and Sean got another of his free kicks. William Hondermark was excellent for us as well - physically very strong and a good footballer as well and we’re trying to drip-feed him into the team a bit more.’