Saturday’s match in Ferrycarraig Park kicks off at 6 pm

Was it good to get Rovers’ All-Island Cup group off to a winning start like we did on Saturday?

Yeah, particularly with losing to Peamount in the previous week, it was good to have the squad bounce back in a positive way and get a good result out of it. I think overall we played pretty well, particularly in the second half. I think it was quite similar to the league game, the only difference this time around was we created a little bit more chances and took those chances when they came.

Jaime Thompson nearly scored a spectacular goal in the first half which came down off the underside of the crossbar but thankfully she did get her name on the scoresheet as she was calm and collected with her penalty…

Jaime was good, and I think that shot in the first half, and that sort of shot outside the box is something I’d like to see a little bit more of. She was unfortunate. I will admit I did go back onto the video to scramble to see had it actually crossed the line but it hadn’t. It was nice to see her take the penalty and convert it as well.

You handed four players their first start for the club. You had said you would make changes, including Lauren Kelly and how good a strike was that for the second goal?

Yeah, it was really, really good. She grew into the game more and more as the game went on. I made six changes overall from the starting line-up from the previous week, so it was nice to give some players some game time. And it’ll be the same again this weekend, to try and rotate the squad a little bit and give more of the players some more game time. Lauren will get another chance this weekend to impress. She’s a really good finisher, so it was nice to see her take the chance when it came.

And in the latter stages of the game, there was also a senior debut for Katie O’Reilly, as the team was unlucky not to add a few more goals with some impressive play but did not keeping the clean sheet blot our copybook?

I do like clean sheets, I really do and it is a little mark against it but I suppose on the plus side of it thankfully it only happened literally in the last second of the game. We just need to make sure that we keep our concentration, that those things don’t happen and we don’t end up putting ourselves under undue pressure in the dying minutes of the game. Overall, I look at the positives and I was happy with the majority of the play.

It was good to get Shauna Fox back on the pitch. Is Stephanie Zambra ready to feature yet?

It was good to have Shauna back in and Steph has done a full week’s training now again this week, so she should be in contention for this weekend. It’ll be really good to see her back on the pitch.

We have the two on international duty, Áine O’Gorman and Abbie Larkin [with Abbie starting in Ireland’s 3-2 win over Zambia yesterday] but is anyone else missing?

No, other than that it’s a clean bill of health. Everyone is fit and ready, even Maria Reynolds after her operation, there was a ramping up of her return to play programme so it’s nice to see her doing some really good work in the gym during the week. So, it looks like we will have a full squad.

As for Wexford, it was a close game when they visited Tallaght. What sort of prospect are they going to be in their own ground on Saturday?

They’ve had a bad run in the league but it doesn’t mean they’re a bad side. They’re a very, very good side that on their day can hurt you. I suppose when you have players like Kylie Morphy, Ciara Rossiter, Rianna Jarrett and Emily Corbet, you have a lot of strength in depth there in that squad and some really, really good players that can hurt you. So we’re under no illusions that it’s going to be a really tough game because they did really well up in Glentoran last week to get a draw out of it. Glentoran are, I would regard, the top side from the north of Ireland. So, to go up there and get a result on their patch is a really good performance, particularly off the back of a bad run that you’ve had. It’s going to be a tough game for us.

You’ll have seen the Sky Sports behind the scenes feature they did on Rovers recently. Did you feel the club came across really well?

I think the club came across well, yes. It was interesting viewing but I don’t like watching myself on video! The club and particularly Áine came across very, very well and I think it was a good portrayal of some of the work that’s going on within the club.