How Shamrock Rovers secured their 25th FAI Cup crown

Last Sunday Shamrock Rovers finally secured their 25th FAI Cup crown. The penalty shootout win over Dundalk in the 2019 extra.ie FAI Cup Final means the Hoops can reclaim their ‘cup specialists’ tag after ending their cup famine. Macdara Ferris takes a look back on the win from the Shamrock Rovers perspective.

Build up

It was a big build up to Shamrock Rovers cup win. The Hoops beat Bohs 2-0 in the semi-final five week’s prior to the final but you could almost say that the build-up was 32 years in the making with 1987 the last time the Hoops had lifted the cup.

Stephen Bradley

Our message to the players in the last few weeks was to just enjoy it. What a challenge to go and break this 32 years hoodoo. We didn’t look at it as a negative or a lot of pressure. Embrace the great tradition of history at the club. 

Unlike their opponents Dundalk, there were only a small number of the Rovers squad who had won the FAI Cup previously at the Aviva Stadium – Ronan Finn, Greg Bolger and Aaron Greene  - although Graham Burke and Jack Byrne had played international football at the venue. With that in mind, the Hoops squad went to Lansdowne Road the week before the final to check out the dressing room and pitch as preparation for the final.

On the eve of the game, Rovers stayed at Carton House where they trained on the Saturday morning with Stephen Bradley letting them know the starting XI with Gary O’Neill set to start and Greg Bolger named on the bench.

Joey O’Brien

The night before the staff had organised a video with messages from fans. The morning of the game there were video messages from family and friends. It was probably one of the best things I’ve seen in the sense of inspirational messages of support. It was really moving and emotional. I was nearly crying. 

Stephen McPhail



I spoke to Greg Bolger on the morning of the game at breakfast about his last game for Cork when we went to watch him before we signed him. He [came on and] changed the game in that cup final. He was so good throughout the day [on Sunday] with all his positivity. He wasn’t playing, he didn’t sulk. He was magnificent when he came on.

Legends are born in Ringsend

Ringsend was the home for both sets of supporters on matchday. Dundalk supporters took up what in recent years has been their regular position in the Irishtown House hosted by the Lilywhite supporting owner. Rovers supporters were gathered outside St. Patrick’s Church on Thorncastle Street about 200m away with the area festooned in green and white bunting.

The halfway point between the two set of fans was at the Ringsend Library. A plaque opposite marks the position of Shamrock Avenue where the club was formed and took its name from in 1899. 

The Pride of Ringsend Rovers supporters club put a huge amount of effort into the occasion, liaising with the church, Dublin City Council and the Gardaí. It was a much bigger crowd than in 2010 when Rovers last made the final and there was also a much larger white horse and march to the ground than back then.

Maggie the mare didn’t seem bothered by the crowd and with a green and white hooped scarf tied around her neck and, with the church clock reading 2.45pm, she led a march of several thousand Rovers fans - just had been the tradition decades ago when Rovers fans marched to cup finals in Dalymount Park behind a white horse. The march went onto Bridge Street over the Dodder bridge with smoke, flares and songs blowing in the wind behind the horse.



Turning left on to South Lotts Road, there Maggie was joined by four Gardai on horseback who were there to control the crowds but it didn’t seem to be a coincidence that all four horses were white too.

Inside the stadium the Rovers supporters were located in the southern end of the stadium. When the teams emerged for the anthem ahead of kick off, Rovers players looked to the right to see a sea of flags being waved and club flags hung right across the bottom of the premium level. Below that in the lower tier was a mulit-banner display organised by Rovers supporters.

The width of the penalty area, it read ‘Legends are born in Ringsend’. The display included Jim McLaughlin (the manager who led the Hoops to two FAI Cups), Paddy Coad (winner of the cup three times as a player and twice as manager), and Pat Byrne (the captain to lift the cup for Rovers back in 1987). 

Rovers started the game well and had the best of the early chances through Aaron Greene and Ronan Finn. Dundalk went close too though first through Brian Gartland and then Daniel Cleary. In the second half Graham Burke couldn’t beat Gary Rogers from the three chances that fell his way while Sean Murray and Jamie McGrath missed at the other end as the clock ticked towards 90 minutes.  

Late drama

With extratime looming, O’Neill started an attack freeing up Burke and Greene to link up and Greene was taken down by Rogers in the box. There was 89 minutes on the clock as McEneff stepped up and converts the penalty. Rovers players and fans celebrated as if the Hoops have won the cup. 

The cup was not won though.

Just as the three minutes of injury time are up, Pat Hoban swings the ball into the box towards Georgie Kelly. Roberto ‘Pico’ Lopes challenges but the ball comes off his back and drops towards Michael Duffy who swivels and smacks the ball home to silence the Shamrock Rovers supporters and spark wild scenes of Dundalk celebrations. A trademark later Dundalk goal.

Pico Lopes

I couldn’t believe it. We scored a last minute penalty and you think that would be enough. But in this game you can’t switch off and a player like Michael Duffy has so much quality. You give him half a sniff in the game and he will punish you and he did.

Aaron McEneff

Scoring the penalty myself in normal time, I thought it was surely over. Then Duffy got that moment of brilliance and scores that equaliser which almost broke my heart. 

Stephen Bradley

You are so high. You think it is over. We take Graham Burke off who was one of the best players on the pitch and they go and score and you think ‘ah, here we go.’ Very quickly Stephen (McPhail) and Glenn (Cronin) came to me and said ‘we are fine, we will win this’. When we got the players in, it was all about that the first five to ten minutes of extra-time.

It was vital as you could feel the energy in the ground drain and the players felt that. It was about refocussing and managing the game until they came back round. I felt our senior players really stood up and took control. They managed the game so well – Joey (O’Brien), Ronan (Finn), Lee (Grace) so many of them. 

Joey O’Brien

I said listen, lads we are all shocked. There is no point in trying to pretend. I’m f**cking shocked. We are all shocked. The next five ten minutes we just need to survive. We get through that then we are back into the game.

Ronan Finn

When the [Dundalk goal] goes in, you have to believe, you have to rally the troops that you can stay in the game. Dundalk are such a strong team. It is never over until it is over. The games against Dundalk this season we tended to have more possession. I think that is the way the game has gone. They understand we are a possession based team but they are so good on the counter and we understand that. It is almost like a game of chess at times.

Extra-time

Unsurprisingly both sets of players tired during the additional 30 minutes but at the death it looked like Georgie Kelly had won the cup – and the treble – for Dundalk, only for Alan Mannus to somehow get a touch on his shot to save the Hoops and send it to penalties.

Pico Lopes

Greg Bogler went tight with Georgie Kelly in the box and the ball dropped. It hit off my heel and went back and he struck it. I’m thinking ‘no, it can’t be’ and then it was just a great hand by Al.

Penalties

Both clubs would have done their homework on the opposition for the spotkicks but perhaps Rovers had the advantage as Dundalk could only work off the one penalty shoot-out the Hoops had been involved in across the last three seasons.

That was a 4-2 League Cup penalty defeat to Bray Wanderers this year - with Leon Pohls in goal for the Hoops and Greg Bolger the only player involved both in the shootout that day and the cup final. Dundalk were involved in five shootouts in the same period including two this season so plenty of data and videos clips for Rovers 'keeper Alan Mannus and his coach Jose Ferrer to work with.

Referee Derek Tomney gathered the two captains ahead of the shootout. Rovers won the first coin toss and Finn was quick to choose for the shootout to take place at the south end of the stadium in front of the Rovers support.

Gartland won the next coin toss though and he choose for Dundalk to go first in the shootout – handing his team a 60/40 statistical advantage.

Stephen Bradley

Our message the day before was it is just a pass, don’t over think it, it is just a pass into the net. It is alright saying that but when the pressure is on in front of 33,000 fans it is easier said and done! 

Jamie McGrath sends Mannus the wrong way for the first penalty but after Jack Byrne scores for Rovers, the Northern Ireland ‘keeper went the correct way for the next three. Duffy cracked one off the crossbar before O’Brien stepped forward.

He had taken and scored just the one penalty before in his career and that was back in 2015 against Birkirkara in Europe in 2015. Maybe Dundalk had the data on O’Brien’s only competitive spotkick but Rogers couldn’t get his hand to O’Brien's well struck spotkick.

Joey O’Brien

The only one I really took in a competitive game was for West Ham in a Europa League qualifier against this Maltese team. I went the exact same area. I thought if it worked once, it will work again. After the game mostly people said to me ‘Jaysus, when I seen you going up to take a peno’. There isn’t even a ‘well done on winning the cup’ just a ‘what were you doing taking the ball for the peno”! 

Cleary stepped up next for the Lilywhites and the player who was previously played on trial at Rovers had Dundalk’s third penalty kick saved by Mannus.

Joey O’Brien

He is the best goalkeeper in the league. He proved it at the weekend with that save. There are those clutch moments in games and that is what it comes down to. In them big games, when you are asked the question can you do it, and he did it. In the shootout he makes the save and those big moments define individual players and careers. 

Substitute Greg Bolger scored next for the Hooops meaning that if Mannus could save Jordan Flores’ kick, the trophy was heading to Tallaght. The ‘keeper dived the right way and got a strong hand on the ball. For a moment it looked like he kept it out but it just crept over the line. It meant Gary O’Neill could win it next for Rovers – not that he knew that was the situation as he walked up. 

Gary O’Neill

I wasn’t aware that I was going to take the winning penalty until I went up to the penalty spot and referee Derek Tomney said to me ‘If you score this, it is over.’ I wasn’t counting them, I just knew Al was saving them. At UCD I was the penalty taker but I’d never taken one like that. I embraced that pressure. Aaron McEneff was taking the fifth one and he said could he take the fourth. I said no as I fancied myself to take this one even though I didn’t know it could be the winner.

Stephen Bradley

When he walked up, I was just thinking just do what you do, nice and calm, pick your spot and thankfully he did. He was so cool and calm. 

O’Neill sent Rogers the wrong way and ran around to celebrate in front of the fans embracing Alan Mannus before the duo were buried below a scrum of Rovers players and members of the back room team. They would be no need for Lopes to step up and take the sixth Rovers penalty, the Hoops had done enough to win their 25th FAI Cup (the combined total of the next three clubs in the list of winners).

When Rovers went up to collect the cup, man-of-the-match Lopes led the team up the steps first. As the players came up onto the top step, there in front row was former Rovers captain Pat Byrne who embraced each of the squad members as they came past. Last up was Ronan Finn who got his hands on the trophy to become the first Rovers captain to lift the cup since Byrne in 1987.

The celebrations

There was the ticker tape, the team photo with the cup and the celebrations in front of the fans but the celebrations would be a 24 hours affair and more. A post-match dinner and drinks were arranged back in the Burlington Hotel for the team and staff, along with their friends and family. On Monday, the team brought the cup out to celebrate with the fans and maybe only then for the players did it began to sink in what it really meant to the supporters of the club they play for.

Pico Lopes

The best thing after the game was after the stadium cleared out we went back out onto the pitch. That was brilliant to go back out and soak it in and Mal [Slattery – the Rovers kitman] got us going with a sing song. 

Gary O’Neill

I hadn’t experienced playing in anything like that. The whole magnitude of the day, with Shamrock Rovers being starved of silverware for so many years - to bring the trophy back to the club for those fans, it will be something that will live with me forever.

Stephen Bradley

People close to me would know what my Mam meant to me. Leading up to the game, I’d go probably to the graveyard every day. I went in the morning time and had a good chat with her. Sadness just because she wasn’t there but I know she would be proud with what we have done.

Joey O’Brien

It was great going back to the Burlington. Your family and friends were in there. As time passes you forget bits and bobs about the game but it is the nights after, getting your pictures with your family around you and seeing that joy with your family and friends. That is what lasts with you.

A friend of mine Ray is married to a cousin of mine and he was there. He is a Rovers die hard. Speaking to him you could see the joy on his face with his son there who had never seen us win the cup. You could see that joy and emotion. It was fantastic. 

Aaron McEneff

This is a special football club. Not winning the cup in that long, the fans deserve better. They got what they deserved. It was important that we won a trophy this year. I signed for this club to come and win trophies. It is probably the best footballing moment of my career by a mile. Winning that was an unbelievable feeling. 

Pico Lopes

We were up in the Abberley Court and the Terenure Inn on Monday bringing the cup around to the fans. We got a great turnout. If you didn’t have a sense of it beforehand you did after Monday. You were meeting all the fans coming up to you and shaking your hands and thanking you.

You are hearing their stories as to how long they have waited from going to games in Milltown, how long they supported Rovers and how they were longing for this cup. It was fantastic to give it back to them as they waited so long and have given so much for the club.

You just reflected the night after on those conversations with the fans, how much it meant to people and seeing the joy on their faces. People were thanking us and we were thinking ‘no, this is for you, yous waited so long’. People had been following the club their whole life and finally got see Rovers win the cup after 32 years.

It is great for us as players to win something and to validate the great season we had but it was for the fans who waited 32 years. 

  • Gary O’Neill, Ronan Finn and Aaron McEneff spoke with extratime.ie reporters Oisin Langan and Tom O’Connor.
  • Joey O’Brien, Gary O’Neill and Pico Lopes spoke on the Tales from the East Stand podcast. Pico Lopes also spoke on Newstalk’s Off the Ball.
  • Stephen McPhail and Stephen Bradley spoke on the LOI Weekly podcast.

 

 

 

 

    About Macdara Ferris

    Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile