Friday evening’s derby kicks off at 8pm. tickets are still available for Tallaght Stadium.

A slender but controlled 1-0 Dublin derby win over Bohs was achieved on Monday night. At this stage of the season is it just about getting wins now regardless how it’s achieved?

“I actually liked the performance.  You have to remember it was coming off the back of Galway and Derry away. Bohs set up, in the way they’re allowed, to frustrate us which is fine. Eventually we took the legs out of them, they got deeper and deeper as the game went on. We got our rewards, the game should’ve been more comfortable but I liked large parts of the performance. So I thought it was a really good win, Dawson Devoy had one long shot in the second half but I don’t think Bohs had any chances in the game. For a Dublin derby we really controlled the game.”

Bohs were content to sit in and close the spaces down, so patience was a key to the win for the team and your comments to SRFCTV afterwards suggest one or two fans could adopt that also.

“99% of our fans are incredible and have been. The South Stand is incredible. But a few people in the West Stand need to be very careful, maybe show a little bit more respect to these players and what they’ve done and how they’ve done it. If they want to see a different type of football, Tallaght isn’t the place to go. That’s ok, that’s their opinion, but they won’t be seeing that in Tallaght. The booing of our players at halftime or during the game is not welcome, we don’t want it. These players have a lot more credit in the bank than that. Success can make people arrogant, we can’t become arrogant. We’ve no divine right to show up and win any game, winning is hard but these players have made it look easy for a long time. As I said, it’s a small, small minority, but they’re there and it’s not what we need. Our fans have been incredible for us, they’re the ones we want watching us every week and supporting us. Some are frustrated when we win, lose or draw, of course and I understand that. But they always stayed with the team and that’s what we’re looking for. We’re not looking for the few who want to come and boo if we play a backwards pass.”

You’ve mentioned previously the importance of managing loads in terms of minutes for players who’ve suffered injuries this season and with the likes of Jack Byrne and Monday’s match winner Graham Burke beginning to hit form, that workload caution is bearing fruit. Does that concern over workloads maybe get missed or underrated by both fans and media?

“It does but I understand that. It’s not their jobs to read into that or manage that. But I’m ok with that. It’s my job to manage the group, try to understand where the players are. For example, Johnny Kenny is just back from a hamstring injury and has played a lot of heavy minutes with a lot of travel so you’ve to manage that. Danny Mandroiu didn’t have a pre-season, Jack Byrne and Graham Burke aren’t long back from injury, we’re trying to get them up to speed. So it’s managing all that but that’s all part of the challenge and it’s maybe lost on people sometimes. But I don’t expect people to fully understand that.”

So to another Dublin derby tomorrow night as St Patrick’s Athletic visit Tallaght Stadium. We’ve won three of our last four league games and it should have been four wins, Pats have won four and drawn one of their last five in the league and had a good European adventure so this game has all the promise of a cracker.

“Yes it does. We have the two in-form teams in the country. Pats have some really good players, you look at Jake Mulraney, Mason Melia, Chris Forrester and Zach Elbouzedi, Brandon Kavanagh, all really good players. But we are playing well and it has all the makings to be a really good game. It’s two teams who’ll go to win the game, so that makes for an exciting game.”

Who’s not available for the St Pat’s game tomorrow?

“Trevor Clarke (came off early against Bohs) will be a few weeks. Aaron McEneff will hopefully be back training next week, Rory Gaffney is still a few weeks away and Seán Hoare is probably next week, pushing for the Apoel game next Thursday, if not the Sunday against Shelbourne. Other than that, everyone’s fine.”