The away leg of the Champions League 2nd Qualifying Round, Second Leg will be streamed on LOITV

A new record European crowd in Tallaght Stadium of 9,684 people saw Rovers put on a more than creditable performance despite losing 2-0 to Sparta Prague. What pleased you particularly about the overall performance?

“We looked really in control. When you’re playing against that level of opposition, you must make sure that you’re in control at all times, whether that’s in or out of possession. I thought we did that well and possibly had the better chances on the night. Obviously, you have to take them, but we created some good opportunities and large parts of the performance were really good.”

Predictably Sparta had much of the possession, but as half time approached, we looked increasingly comfortable in covering spaces, hunting in packs, and frustrating Sparta so the first goal so near to half time was a bitter blow on the night.

“Again, when you play against that type of team, you understand at times you won’t have the ball and that’s ok. It’s about being comfortable in those situations, and I thought we did that really well on the night. If Neil Farrugia scored his early opportunity, it’s a different game. We’re disappointed to concede just before half time as we were doing really well. But when you give up those type of opportunities against that level opposition, you usually get punished and we got punished.”

As you alluded to above, we had the best chance of the half with Neil Farrugia when the Sparta keeper, away from his goal, played the ball to him but the chance was blocked. Neil gave a performance of power and danger; really shows how much we missed him in Europe last season.

“I said it when we looked back at our European games last season, we were missing key players in key areas of the pitch and Neil was one of those. It helps we’ve had them this year which was important against Vikingur in the previous round. You could again see it against Sparta and hopefully this proves to be the case going forward.”

When the second goal was scored, mental and physical fatigue could easily have set in among the group to concede more, but the lads showed real courage and focus to finish strongly, and we were unlucky not to get at least one goal back.

“We could have got at least one goal back near the end of the game. For Sparta’s second goal, there’s not much we do wrong to be fair. It was real quality from Sparta. They needed everything to go right from the build-up phase to the actual finish, everything had to be spot on as our press was pretty good. They showed their quality and sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say it’s a really good goal from their position. But it didn’t knock us, we kept going and we’re disappointed not to get at least one goal back at the end.”

What has been the focus of the mind with the players in training having seen it he game back in terms of how they see us getting back into a tough second leg in Prague?

We know it’s tough and we know what we’re against. The players have had a feel for it and that’s always good to have a feel for them up close and know what you’re going into. It’s all about those moments in the game, can you capitalise on it? We know goals change games, change momentum, we saw that in Tallaght in the first leg. It’s all about staying focussed and when we get those opportunities, taking them. If you take one of them, anything can happen.”

Will the approach to that second leg again be to keep it scoreless, grow into the game and hopefully create and most importantly, take chances we do make?

“That’s the aim, but again you have to respect what we’re playing against, understand what Sparta are really good at. We also have to look at how we can create and score goals and I think we showed in the first leg, we know we can do that. It’s just about taking the opportunities when we get them, so we’ll see.”

Did everyone emerge ok injury-wise from the first leg? Jack Byrne will be back down suspension and are Graham Burke and Aaron McEneff back for selection?

“Aaron and Graham trained on Sunday. It might be a little too early for Aaron. Graham is a little further ahead, but both trained and are good. Johnny Kenny took a knock in the first half against Sparta for which we need to be careful. It has settled well but we’ll check on that to be sure. Everyone else came through the Sparta game which is good. Markus Poom has another week under his belt, so Rory Gaffney is still the only one out.”