A MONTH AGO, Shamrock Rovers beat St Patrick’s Athletic on penalties in the curtain-raising President’s Cup, and manager Stephen Bradley criticised his side’s performance. 

“We probably only got going in the last 15 minutes,” said Bradley. “Up to that point, I thought we were terrible and St Pat’s should have been out of sight.” 

Last night at Richmond Park, everything came full circle. This time Rovers were beaten by Pat’s – 1-0, thanks to Chris Forrester’s goal – but this was a performance Bradley deemed worthy of praise. 

“I thought we were very good”, reflected Bradley. “Looking at the stats there, we created 13, 14 chances; we had over 30 entries into the final third to their one. I thought we were very good.

“Tonight was the best we’ve been all year, in the four games, and if we produce that nine times out of 10 we win the game. The game could possibly have been over at half time, they had a spell in the second half when it was scrappy but overall I thought we were very, very good tonight.” 

The game was settled by a goal early in the second half, as Chris Forrester headed Darragh Burns’ corner beyond Alan Mannus. 

“The goal is a corner kick, other than that they had a Chris Forrester shot from 30 yards, that’s the only threat all night. The corner is disappointing, it’s five yards out and a free header. But we were very good. It’s strange to say that given we were beaten, but we were very good.” 

There was one notable moment shortly after the concession of the goal. Bradley introduced Graham Burke for Danny Mandroiu, with the latter reacting angrily to being taken off, earning him a rebuke from Rovers coach Glenn Cronin. Bradley later revealed that Mandroiu had suffered a knee injury in the first half. 

“No he’s annoyed, he’s come off, the injury has hampered him”, said Bradley. “He wanted to play. Danny needs one to go in for him and we know he can go on a run. He’s annoyed, it’s 55 minutes and he’s coming off, but we needed to be careful with the knock.”

Pat’s manager Tim Clancy, meanwhile, was happy to see an improved performance off the back of a miserable week. Pat’s beat Shelbourne on the opening night but then sank to consecutive defeats against Sligo and Bohemians. 

“Pleased with the result: getting the win against Shamrock Rovers is big but the performance was even better”, said Clancy. “We were probably missing it in the last two games, we were really disappointed with the results against Sligo and Bohs, and the performances moreso. It probably showed a different side to us there tonight, that we can grind out a result as well. We have a lot of quality as regards players on the pitch and we showed a different part of it with the performance defensively. 

“They have unbelievable players in the middle of the pitch but I thought Chris Forrester was…I think he’s technically the best player in the league but you could see the other side of it tonight. He’s flying, he’s doing loads of work and he’s even scoring from corners. I thought Adam O’Reilly was brilliant in there too, with his energy, you have Mark Doyle, Darragh [Burns] doing brilliant on the wings, you have Tunde [Owolabi] coming on. Billy King too. Really pleasing.

“But I thought the centre backs dealt really well with the balls coming into the box. Over the last two seasons Shamrock Rovers have scored a lot of late goals by putting a lot of pressure on teams but I thought the lads stood up really well. And we had the experience of [Ian Bermingham] to call on to steady the ship at the end.” 

The result means Derry have retaken top spot from Rovers, who are joint-second with Pat’s.