STEPHEN BRADLEY was critical of his side after they were beaten 4-2 by Flora Tallinn in Thursday night’s Europa Conference League play-off round first leg.
The defeat leaves the Estonian side as favourites to progress ahead of next week’s second leg in Tallaght, and Bradley admitted some of his side’s problems were self-inflicted.
“We gave away four terrible goals from our point of view and if you do that at any level, especially this level, you don’t deserve to win the game and we haven’t tonight.
“We made really bad mistakes, mistakes that I haven’t seen this team make before. And they have to capitalise on those errors and they did to be fair.
“We’re not a team that concedes goals and especially not goals like that. If you get outplayed or cut open by a team, sometimes you have to accept it and take it on the chin but tonight we gave away four really poor goals from our point of view. If you do that, you don’t deserve to win.”
Despite the setback, Bradley was still optimistic that his side could produce an improved second-leg display and maintained hopes of progressing to the competition’s group stages.
“We’re definitely well capable of winning the tie, there is no doubt about that but it was individual mistakes tonight and it’s very, very rare for this team to give up goals like that and tonight we have given four up. That’s not good enough.
“When the dust settles and we have a look at it, there are a lot of positives but you still can’t get away from the fact we conceded four goals and that’s just not good enough, whether that’s domestically or in Europe. You don’t concede like that.”
He continued: “We had this in Bratislava. It’s half-time and we’re two down but we know what we need to do to win the tie.”
Rovers were missing Lee Grace for the game, but Bradley played down suggestions the defender’s absence was a big factor in the loss.
“No, I don’t think so. I think Sean Hoare’s was one of the best performances from an Irish player in Europe. I thought he was outstanding. He made a mistake for the last goal but other than that I thought he was very, very good. There were other mistakes that we made leading up to the goal and it wasn’t down that side, other individual mistakes.”
The Rovers boss also rejected the assertion that his side needed to be more defensive at this level in future.
“I don’t think it’s anything to do with how we played the game, we gave away really really poor goals from individual mistakes. And when you play against good players, you get punished and we got punished. The goals — I’ve seen them back — they were mistakes that we never make and tonight we made them.
“I think we respected them, we respected the game. I think it’s very hard to win games when you make individual errors like that and give away goals like we gave away. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, and tonight that was proven to be the case. I thought the players’ approach to the game was very good, there were a lot of positives to the game but we’ve given away four terrible goals.
“If you see the goals back, you talk about being open, but if you beat the first press you look open. The transition, we spoke about it all week, we had to be good because that’s where they’re strong. That’s where they wait for us. But it’s down to individual errors.”
Bradley also lamented the fact that after getting it back to 3-2 through Liam Scales in the 86th minute, his side couldn’t hold on to keep the deficit at one goal.
“It’s really poor because we score to make it 3-2, you’re telling the players to be nice and calm, be relaxed. Take it back to Tallaght 3-2, you’re really really happy. It’s another individual mistake that we give away. We have a good press on, we have them where we want them and Sean jumps out and allows the boy to turn him. Again, it’s very rare. But it happened and we got punished. It’s really really frustrating because there were three or four minutes left, it’s 3-2 and you’re happy taking that back to Tallaght considering the goals we’ve given away.”
