Joey O'Brien - That is what you dream of. It is why you play football out in the back garden, scoring a winner or scoring a peno in a cup final.

Macdara Ferris reports from Tallaght Stadium

It was 10.46pm and we reached the 26th spot kick of the penalty shoot out in Tallaght Stadium with Joey O'Brien stepping forward to take his second spotkick of the evening.

At stake was a berth in the Europa League Second Qualifying Round and a financial reward for the club of €260,000.

No pressure then on O’Brien but it seems the former Ireland international thrives on these moments and he duly slotted it home for an incredible 12-11 shootout win. O’Brien has taken part in two shootouts during his career scoring in both.

Back in 2015, he scored in West Ham United’s 5-3 shootout win in a Europa League qualifier against Birkirkara and of course he scored in last November’s shoot-out in Rovers’ FAI Cup Final victory.

Hoops hero

“I said to the lads who is going to be a hero?” said O’Brien about the shootout. “That is what you dream of. It is why you play football out in the back garden, scoring a winner or scoring a peno in a cup final. Luckily for me I was the man to take the peno and it went in.”

Ilves Tampere had won the toss and went first in the shoot-out – statistically the team going first wins in 60% of shootouts. After Lauri Ala-Myllyaki scored the first peno, Jack Byrne’s effort was pushed onto the post by Ilves’ captain Mika Hilander which handed a further advantage in the shootout.

Jair Tavares Silva hit the post with Ilves’ next peno before a remarkable run penalties including a dozen in a row for Rovers starting with Joey O’Brien. The penos kept coming and kept being scored - with Rovers not buckling under the pressure of going second and knowing a miss would send them out of Europe.

Goalkeepers



When it came round to the tenth penalty for each team, it was time for the goalkeepers with Hilander firing home off the underside of the crossbar and then Alan Mannus blasting his one home.

Ilves had to sit out one player from the shootout as the Hoops were down to ten men after Liam Scales’ red card so it meant players had to step up again for penalty number 11.

Dylan Watts and Aaron McEneff scored second time around before Mannus, diving full length, saved Eemeili Raittinen’s peno leaving the way for O’Brien to get the winner.

“After I scored my first one when it gets to seven or eight you think this is coming back around so you start stretching and getting nervous again! We always fancied Al to save one and he did. It happened that I was the next one up.”

Leader of men

Hoops Head Coach Stephen Bradley speaking after the match praised O’Brien. “He’s a leader of men,” said Bradley. “He was excellent, especially when we were down to ten men, you can hear him all over the pitch organising things. And we said before the shoot out: we’ve been here before, nice and calm and like I said, Alan will save one.”



When O'Brien's peno hit the back of the net from the centre circle, the Rovers players ran forward to celebrate with him and Alan Mannus and from outside the stadium the cheers rang out from a group of Hoops fans that were perched on the perimeter wall. The players did appreciate that support during extra-time as they battled their Finnish opponents with one man less.

“We heard (the fans) in extra-time, no doubt about it. They gave us that little bit of encouragement and bit of a push to hang on in there. It is strange circumstances (playing behind-closed-doors). I said in the dressingroom beforehand you are not going to forget this with no fans. We won’t forget it after how this went!

“When you go down to ten men it was hard work but we are a very fit team and we are experienced. We managed it well. We sat in and gave up possession and I don’t think they had very many chances when we went down to ten men. We were kind of hoping to get to penos then and we took care of business.”

Handball

O’Brien wasn’t happy with a couple of the decisions by Slovakian referee Michael Ocenas – including awarding a penalty for a handball when the ball hit him flush in the face.

“I could have been going to the dentist in the morning! It was a poor decision and never a penalty. Luckily for us we regrouped and bounced back really well when they scored the penalty. It was a night of comebacks and luckily we came out on the right end of it.”

Thursday night’s result extended Rovers unbeaten run to 17 games, with the last home defeat coming last June. 

“We haven’t been beaten in a long time. People on the outside were talking about the scoreless draws (against St. Pat’s and Shels) but we haven’t been beaten. That is the mentality in the groups and the roll we are on.”

FAI Cup

Next up for Rovers is the club’s first defence of an FAI Cup for 32 years with Cork City coming to Tallaght on Monday evening.

“It is going to be a hard game here. Cork have picked up their performances and results recently so it is going to be a tough game. Them memories are fresh from the cup final and we don’t want to give it up easily.”

Additional reporting by Dave Donnelly.

    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