Tickets remain on sale for Friday’s match. Kickoff is at 8pm and the game will be streamed on LOITV.

Due to the international break, we had last weekend off. Was it good for players and staff to recharge a bit after such a busy start to the season?

“Yes, it was nice to get the little break, look after certain players and get them back from injury. Then we had a few away on international duty, but it was nice to be able give the players a couple of days off last weekend.”

Speaking of that international break, we had Pico Lopes away with Cape Verde, winning two World Cup qualifiers and who now top their group ahead of Cameroon, Cory O’Sullivan and Michael Noonan both played for Ireland under-19s and between the first team squad and academy players, we had Alex Noonan, Victor Ozhianvuna, Brody Lee and Charles Akinrintayo all part of the Ireland under-17s who qualified for the World Cup, with Charles scoring against Iceland. That’s some international break for Rovers players.

“Yes, it is, and it’s great. All the players did really well. It’s an incredibly proud moment when you represent your country at any age, so the players involved have come back in really good spirits, which you’d hope and expect. It’s great to get them back in among the group and to bring that energy with them. So now we focus on Derry tomorrow night.”

Briefly on our last league game, the 2-1 way win over Drogheda, having watched it back, what aspects pleased you most in what was Drogheda’s first defeat of the season?

“I don’t think we gave up too much in the game. Their goal came from us having clean possession and making a silly mistake in our own box and it cost us. But in general, we didn’t give up much in the game. Drogheda have been excellent so far this season, so we knew it was going to be tough, but even when Drogheda scored, I thought we looked comfortable. We never looked like we’d lost our stride or that it worried us too much. I thought the players were excellent how they dealt with it. There’s no doubt Drogheda will win a lot of games up there this season.”

Derry come to Tallaght this weekend; they sit level on points with us with a slightly inferior goal difference. They’ve added some experience to their squad also. What have you made of their season so far?

“I know people will have looked at their results early on, but I’ve watched all their games and in many of those games they’ve had a lot of opportunities to go ahead and maybe win games. Those moments change games. Regardless of the changes they’ve made, when you look at their attacking players on the pitch, Derry are a really good team going forward. So, we need to make sure we respect that and are ready for it.”

Tiernan Lynch took over as Derry Manager for the start of the season and you met him when he was Larne manager when we beat them last October in the Europa League. Can you see much difference in their set up with Tiernan as against Derry’s style under Ruaidhrí Higgins?

“Yes, they definitely have different ideas. I think you can see they’re trying to do different things. That’s normal when you have a change in management, they bring their own ideas in how they want to play. They’ve also invested heavily in their squad so you can see what they’re trying to do. There’s definitely a big change to when Ruaidhrí was there to now. But as I said, that’s normal when a new manager comes in.”

You hoped Lee Grace and Danny Mandroiu might get closer to fitness with last weekend off. Are they ready to return and did everyone come back from international duty ok or is anyone unavailable for the Derry game?

“All international players came back fine, no knocks. Lee Grace trained this week. Danny Mandroiu is almost there, but we’ll delay Danny and take a bit more time with him. He was with the specialist during the week who’s really happy where Danny is with it. If we were at a different stage of the season, we could push him, but we won’t take any unnecessary risks. Darragh Nugent has been given the all-clear to train, but we’re just waiting on his all-clear to play which should come today or tomorrow and he’s good to go when we get that.”