Season Review 2016 - Shamrock Rovers

Team:  Shamrock Rovers

Manager: Well that is a good question! There were three different answers to this question during the season with Pat Fenlon, Stephen Bradley and Sami Ristila all at the helm with the Hoops. However rather than have manager’s notes in the Shamrock Rovers match programme recently, they went with ‘What Stephen Bradley says’. Read into that what you will! The Hoops are expected to make a managerial announcement for next season in the coming fortnight.

Top Scorer: Gary McCabe with ten league goals was the Rovers top goalscorer for 2016, as this season he moved into the top 20 all-time league goalscorers for the Hoops. Half of his league goals in 2016 were penalties. McCabe slotted home seven of his 12 goals in all competitions from the penalty spot, converting each penalty he took.

Highest Attendance: 3,513 watched Rovers play Dundalk in Tallaght Stadium on Friday 22 April although the Hoops had a crowd in excess of 4,000 at their July friendly in Tallaght against Leeds United.

Lowest Attendance: The lowest crowd for a home Rovers league fixture was 948 against Wexford Youths on Monday 15 August, with an FAI Cup low of 578 against Middleton on Friday 20 May.

Star Player: With no disrespect to Simon Madden, having your full back as the star player of the season, sums up the type of year the Hoops have had. Madden showed his adaptability by being deployed at both right and left full back as well as a wingback during the season when Rovers utilised a three at the back formation. He also showed his ongoing consistency by starting every Rovers league game for the second consecutive season and he played all but 12 minutes of league action across the whole campaign.

Best Young Player: With Rovers’ deployment of youth, particularly in the latter half of the season, there were plenty of options for best young player but Trevor Clarke was the standout teenager for the Hoops this year. He was very much part of Pat Fenlon’s plans from the start of the season and had cemented a place in the starting XI by the time Stephen Bradley took over. The Ireland under 19 international started 14 league games for the Hoops and played in 33 competitive games scoring his first league goal back in April in the week that he turned 18.

Best New Signing: Gary Shaw just about edged out Dean Clarke for this honour. The Hoops signed a number of players from their under 19 team during the season with Sean Boyd probably performing the best. However Shaw, signed from Longford Town during the close season, provided much needed stability in the Shamrock Rovers strikeforce. He scored six league goals and led the line very effectively for much of the league campaign.

What we expected they would do: Third place was the view of the extratime.ie hive mind at the start of the season (see here). This reporter in his season preview of the Hoops (see here) used the phrase “the Hoops will expect to push the current champions close in this season’s title race.” It certainly didn’t work out that way.

What they actually did: It was tempting to do a ‘cut and paste job’ with this section for Rovers from the last few seasons. They have ticked a lot of the same boxes in recent years. Failed to put any sort of title challenge – tick. Missed out on FAI Cup number 25 – tick. Changed manager – tick. They have even managed for the second time in three years to qualify for Europe thanks to others above them in the table going further in the FAI Cup.

The Hoops finished fourth in the league. Rovers were never really in the title running after four losses in a six game period from mid-March to April when they suffered defeats to St. Pat’s, Derry City, Dundalk and Cork City. They did at least qualify for Europe for the third season in a row but only due to largesse of the cup finalists Dundalk and Cork City finishing first and second in the league.

They couldn’t overcome an embarrassing 2-0 first leg home defeat in Tallaght to ROPS Rovaniemi which saw them exit the Europa League after the second leg at the earliest stage of the qualifiers and this precipitated Pat Fenlon’s departure from the club before the away leg in Finland.

The positive points of the season for Rovers revolve around two Dublin derby wins, youth development and infrastructure development both under way and planned for the future.

The Hoops had two emphatic wins over Bohemians (the 4-0 win in Dalymount their largest winning margin in the derby for 50 years). This season the Hoops gave seven teenagers their league debuts, an early return on Rovers’ recent investment in youth structures at the club.

The first phase of development at their Roadstone training base is under way with construction of pitches at their due to be finished before Christmas with the aid of a €1.5m investment made into the club during the year by Seumus Dawes and Ray Wilson.

Phase 2 will start soon after which will include dressing rooms and other player facilities, while South Dublin County Council have issued details of the third stand to be completed at the car park end of Tallaght Stadium.

What they need to improve on for next year: The Hoops need to bring a striker into their squad that can score goals, if not in the quantity of Gary Twigg, then at least in the teens – Christy Fagan anyone? This is the third time in four seasons, McCabe has topped the goalscoring charts in Tallaght.  The previous times the midfielder got eight goals in both 2013 and 2014 – a far cry from when Rovers had Twigg as their capocannoniere when he averaged over 20 goals a season from 2009 to 2012.

Whoever is the manager, and Stephen Bradley is still expressing interest in the job over the weekend, they need to get Rovers getting decent results on a consistent basis – and a consistent return from Brandon Miele (who got nine league goals in 2016, two less than last year).

If the Hoops are to continue with playing such a young side, they need to bring in some experienced hands alongside those youngsters – particularly with the retirement of influential Stephen McPhail at the end of this season. McPhail was appointed Rovers' Sporting Director this week (see here).

#GreatestLeagueInTheWorld moment of season: Sean Boyd celebrating a goal in front of his mates mightn’t seem that great a moment. However when his friends are Bohemians fans and it was Boyd celebrating his first league goal of his career by beelining to the Bohs away section in Tallaght it made for probably the #greatestleagueintheworld moment for the Hoops this season.

In the build up to the derby game in Tallaght, Boyd had posted on social media how much he was looking forward to the game and friends of his who are Gypsies supporters commented ‘Just don’t score’. He responded by saying ‘If I do score, I’m running straight over to yous’. Boyd was a man of his word as he rounded off a 3-1 Dublin Derby win with a superb strike with a celebration in front of the away supporters!