Stephen Bradley believes Rovers remain in tie but history is against the Hoops

Macdara Ferris reports from the A. Le Coq Arena in Tallinn

Hoops Head Coach Stephen Bradley isn’t ruling out his Rovers team overturning the two goal deficit in the second leg of their Europa Conference League play-off against Flora Tallinn.

However having lost 4-2 in Tallinn on Thursday evening, history is against the Hoops as no League of Ireland side has ever come back from two goals down after the first leg of a knock out tie.

The Rovers boss was ruing the defensive errors that cost them against the Estonian champions when he spoke with extratime.com in the stadium after the final whistle.

Alive

“The tie is very much still alive even considering how we have defended tonight,” said Bradley.  “I can't remember the last time we have defended like that. We gave up such easy goals. 

“We were so poor on the goals we gave away and if you do that you get punished at this level as you are playing against good players. 

"There were too many individual errors leading up to the goals and we got punished.

“We obviously have to tidy up on that and make sure we are better in that department. If we do that the tie is definitely very much alive. 

“We are 2-0 down and it is half time (in the tie). We have been here before against Slovan Bratislava. We know what we have to do in Tallaght.”

The Hoops lost 2-0 away in Slovakia and led 2-0 at home against Slovan before conceding a goal to go out of the Champions League qualifiers 4-3 on aggregate last month.

“You saw tonight attacking wise we have more than enough to score goals and cause them problems. We know we create chances and score goals no matter who we play against. We did tonight and we will do it again next week.”

Happy Henn

The opposition Head Coach Jurgen Henn was understandably very happy with the result. “I'm happy that we scored four goals,” said Henn as his team stand on the brink of history in becoming the first Estonian team to make the group stages of a UEFA club competition. 

He was delighted that his pressing plan paid dividends early in the game. “The first goal came from good pressure from our team. I maybe expected more pressure without the ball from Rovers. Taking this two goal advantage (to Dublin) is very good.”

Henn acknowledged when speaking to extratime.com after the game that “the drawback is we conceded two quite simple avoidable goals” but the result very much leaves his team in the driving seat when the action switches from Tallinn to Tallaght next Thursday night.

#onthewhistle report on a disappointing night for Shamrock Rovers https://t.co/ZUO80HwY73pic.twitter.com/w9R8AJfLym

— Macdara Ferris (@macdarabueller) August 19, 2021