Gavin Cooney reports from Tallaght Stadium

THE EUROPA CONFERENCE League is lucrative terrain – but Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley insists that his side are not motivated by the prize money on offer. 

Rovers have already banked a guaranteed €3.3 million by qualifying for the group stages, and will earn another €500,000 for every group game they win, and €166,000 for a draw. For context, Rovers would need to win five league titles to outstrip the prize money on offer for a single win across their six group games in this year’s campaign. 

Bradley, however, isn’t thinking about it. 

“No, it’s not of interest to us. It’s about making sure we perform first of all. If we perform, let’s see can that bring the result. That’s all we focus on.” 

The campaign begins tomorrow night at Tallaght Stadium against Djurgardens of Sweden, who are the group’s bottom seeds though by no means minnows. They are second in the Swedish league, a point from the summit with nine games to go. 

“A difficult one”, said Bradley when asked of the challenge they will pose. 

“They are a very good side, they are near the top of their domestic league and when you watch them you can see they are really well coached, some really dangerous players in the team and they play off a structure and a real plan, they are a really good team.” 

Rovers, though, have had an outstanding home record in Europe this year, beating all of Hibernians, Ludogorets, Shkupi, and Ferencvaros. The wins against Ludogorets and Ferencvaros provided comfort and confidence after after heavy first-leg defeats. 

“It’s not just them games, it’s what we have been doing for the last few years”, said Bradley of his team’s growing confidence. “What we have built, the style we play, it’s been geared towards when we play in Europe. that it helps us and suits us and we don’t have to change. We know these are a difficult team, a good side, but we believe that when we hit our levels we can cause any team problems and hurt any team. And Djurgardens will be no different.

“We believe we can win games in this group. Is it going to be difficult? Yeah. Is it against good teams, big clubs? Yeah. But at the end of the day, it is 11 men against 11 men on the pitch and we believe we can win games in this group. You need certain things to go your way, but we believe we can go and win games.” 

That said, Bradley made Djurgardens the favourites for tomorrow’s game when asked, and ranked Molde of Norway as the group favourites, with Gent of Belgium completing the group quartet. 

Rovers will have Graham Burke and Simon Power available tomorrow night following injuries, but Richie Towell is a doubt having picked up a knock in last week’s league defeat to Bohemians. Roberto Lopes is close to fitness following a knee injury, and is expected to be available within the next 10 days. 

Elsewhere on the domestic front, Rovers’ lead at the top of the Premier Division 0ver Dundalk was trimmed to three points today, as Dundalk were awarded a 3-0 win in what was a 2-0 defeat on the pitch to Sligo at the end of August. Rovers have two games in hand over Dundalk. 

Sligo wrongly fielded Adam McDonnell in the game, who should have been sitting out the game through suspension. In a statement, Sligo said they admitted they had made an error, but said they had been confused by the fact McDonnell’s name had been omitted from two weekly suspension lists issued by the FAI to all clubs. 

“I think it’s the correct decision, it had to be. It was the only outcome really. I think the procedure needs to be tightened up in terms of how the emails are sent out and how they’re read, because I think that the clubs by gospel by them and rightly or wrongly that’s the way it goes, but I think it needs to be tidied up as it very easily can happen, because the outcome was always going to be that outcome. It doesn’t affect what we have to do. We know what we have to do domestically, we know what games we have to win and we’ll be fully focused on that when it comes around. ”