Lessons To Be Learned & Rovers Can Soon Show They Have

It has been another mixed Europa Conference League campaign for Shamrock Rovers this year. Having picked up a point in the opening game against Djurgardens IF at the Tallaght Stadium, the side then lost their next three successive games to leave them bottom of Group F with only one point to show for their efforts.

Things slightly improved on Thursday evening for gaffer Stephen Bradley as his side welcomed KAA Gent to their home soil, and having seized the advantage three minutes into the first half following an effort from Rory Gaffney to register their first goal of the competition, even going down to ten men late on in the game did not see them suffer defeat and there would have been great odds on bet365 for that result to happen.

The visitors did equalise to take a point with just over 15 minutes remaining on the clock, but Rovers will be pleased with their efforts given the sustained pressure they came under across the 90 minutes and it was their second point of the group stage. The fact they lost both Dylan Watts and Chris McCann in injury in the first half of the game, seeing 17-year-old Ferizaj get an introduction in the 24th minute shows just how hard they battled.

The fact Gaffney's goal was their first in a European group stage in over eleven years, simply made the night sweeter for those fans in attendance, as the only real disappointment was in not seeing the side pick up the victory having led for so long, and in turn picked up a very memorable European win and the likes of Betvictor would not have expected that.

It has been a great week for the club as a whole though, Gent almost became an afterthought for many within the Tallaght faithful as the overriding thought was to simply celebrate the latest Championship title win (their 20th SSE Airtricity League title), but despite the positives of Thursday evening, Bradley himself did have some regrets from the game as he knew that the sending off had proved to be a pivotal point when it came to the final result.

"We came off the game 10 minutes before half-time and allowed them to dictate the game. We stopped pressing, and they're a good team when you stop pressing and they hurt us a little bit. The second half we started ok again. The sending off, and the goal within two minutes, completely changed the game. That was frustrating because we were just about to take Justin off, because we knew he was on the edge. Literally he made the tackle and then within 90 seconds they score, so within two minutes we've given up a man and the goal. It's something we definitely have to learn from, going forward."

Bradley's frustration here is understandable given Rovers could have made history by breaking the Iris European points tally, and that will be a tall order now as they face already qualified Djurgardens again to close out the group and there probably would not have been a better opportunity to secure the 500,000 Euros that goes with a victory.

Whilst Ferizaj will be disappointed in the part he played in losing the lead, Bradley knew he would learn from the experience and given his tender age, he would be better for it in the future.

"He's young, and he'll learn from that experience. If we keep 11 on the pitch we've every chance of scoring that second goal. Unfortunately, at this level when you switch off for a minute you usually get punished and we did after the sending off. We had a lot of injuries tonight - five or six - and Chris and Dylan coming off. That'll be them for the season, I'd imagine, and the ones that were missing tonight, I don't think we'll have them back for next week. We're down to low numbers. So thankfully we did our work that we had to do in the last few weeks in the league because we're really tight on numbers."

With the title secured, maybe those lessons can be put into practice next campaign.