Kick-off in Tallaght Stadium is at 8 pm. Tickets are still available. The match will be streamed live on LOITV.

It was a frustrating night in Tallaght against Galway on Friday as a late Johnny Kenny header rescued a point. Was a draw the maximum we deserved on the night?

“I think if you’re being factual, we had chances to win the game. We had the penalty and we had two really good opportunities, two free headers from corners where we should score, but did our overall play merit the win? I didn’t feel it did on the night and when you watch it back. Our initial building phases were good, but our final third play was really poor. I think a draw was a fair result.”

While you said a few weeks ago when Cian Dillon made his league debut that it was maybe ideally better if he’d waited a bit longer, the same might be said of 16-year-old Matthew Britton, but needs dictated his league debut and Matthew showed potential and character in a difficult situation as we chased the equaliser.

“He did. It just shows the benefit of having the young kids playing for us in pre-season. Matt made a strong impression in pre-season and that stuck with me. I watched him with the U20s this year so when it was time to put him on, even though he’s very young, I knew he’d be ok. He’s the type of character that nothing phases him, he just gets on with it. I thought he showed moments of quality, he was really at ease which was nice to see.”

The Friday/Monday games this season are certainly not helping in terms of players’ rest and recovery, how difficult but also how important is it to just navigate these games and to not feel sorry for ourselves or panic collectively?

“We’ve been here many times before. There’s never any sense of panic around this group. We don’t operate in that way. It’s just calmness, try and recover as best you can, prepare for the next game, and meet it head-on. What will be, will be, but there’s never a sense of panic around this group. We’ve been there too long, around the top for so long, that doesn’t happen here.”

We play Drogheda United for the first time this season. You’ll have done your homework on them in advance, how are they looking in your view of them in terms of strengths and attributes as a team?

“They’ve just come off the back of a really good win (3-1 v Sligo). When you look at what they have in the attacking part of the pitch, you look at Foley, Markey and Pierrot, they are really good, really dangerous. I said before the Galway game and it’s very similar with Drogheda, if we switch off for a moment, as we did on Friday, you get punished. That’s what happens in this league. We have to make sure that we’re fully switched on for ninety-plus minutes against Drogheda. If you’re not, they’ve shown in the past and this year, they’ll punish you.”

With the short turnaround from Friday, Dan Cleary returns from a one game suspension and you hoped to have Markus Poom back. Is that the case and are any other injured players back in contention for Monday’s game?

We’ll check on Markus and Richie Towell today (Sunday). We hope to get clearance during the week for maybe two or three more. We’re getting there, it’s fine and part and parcel of it. Hopefully, in November we’re looking back at this stage and saying how well we came through it as a group. It’s about being nice and calm, focussed about what’s in front of us.”