{"id":172422,"date":"2025-11-10T02:36:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T02:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/172422\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T02:36:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T02:36:14","slug":"the-shamrock-rovers-runaway-train-leaves-stephen-bradley-beaming-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/172422\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shamrock Rovers runaway train leaves Stephen Bradley beaming \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those of a certain vintage, there was a spell when all Shamrock Rovers<\/a> did was win doubles. This, of course, is an exaggeration, but back in the 1980s, it would have felt that way for their rivals. But the latter had, at least, enjoyed 38 years of relief from these double dosages. Until Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a runaway train,\u201d said Gareth McGlynn on RT\u00c9\u2019s pitchside panel after Rovers\u2019 2-0 triumph over Cork City in the FAI Cup final<\/a> thanks to goals from Peter Pan, aka Rory Gaffney. Added to their fifth league title in six years, and their Conference League campaign, that adds up to a reasonable enough season. Little wonder Stephen Bradley was beaming. <\/p>\n

Gaffney was, need it be said, the man of the match, although the stadium\u2019s head groundsperson deserved at least a share of the gong after having the pitch in pristine condition just 24 hours after 30 Irish and Japanese gentlemen had been rucking\u2019 and mauling\u2019 the bejaysus out of it.<\/p>\n

Tony O\u2019Donoghue examined the surface in the company of Cork and Rovers old boys Alan Bennett and Ronan Finn, and while doing so spotted a Rovers man demonstrating his skills during the warm-up. \u201cLook at Burkie there doing the keep-puppies, he\u2019s like Catherine Connolly,\u201d he said. Graham Burke has been compared to many folk in his life \u2013 like, say, the Brazilian Ronaldo \u2013 but possibly never to a president-elect.<\/p>\n

Such was the contrast in the seasons enjoyed\/endured by the finalists \u2013 champions versus relegated \u2013 the panel might have struggled to big this contest up, but Alan Cawley, especially, did his level best, refusing to rule out an upset. And he didn\u2019t look to be too wide of the mark when it was still scoreless approaching half-time, at which point Cork were reduced to 10 men after picking up the reddest of red cards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just stuuuuuuupid,\u201d as Stuart Byrne put it at the break, the panel by then putting all their eggs in Rovers\u2019 basket. A wise enough move, as it proved, although just one question? Behind the din of the whoopin\u2019 and hollerin\u2019 Rovers fans when the goals went in, did we hear After All being blasted over the stadium speakers as their celebration tune? If so, that would be akin to playing Molly Malone if Cork scored. Or it could be that these ears need syringing?<\/p>\n

Anyway, a disappointing day for Cork, including their young defender Freddie Anderson. Des Curran reminded us that Freddie\u2019s Da Viv won two European Cups. \u201cI\u2019d say he\u2019d give both of those up to see his son win an FAI Cup final,\u201d said Conan Byrne. \u201cMy arse,\u201d Viv might have replied if he was tuned in.<\/p>\n

Over to Sky for the second half of Manchester City v Liverpool. \u201cLiverpool have been dreadful,\u201d said our Roy at the break, and it didn\u2019t get a whole lot better thereafter. \u201cYeah, I think it\u2019s a crisis for them,\u201d he said come full-time, it not being often that you worsen your team after you spend close enough to a half a billion Euros in one transfer window.<\/p>\n

Micah Richards zoomed in on Florian Wirtz for criticism, but Roy intimated that the rearguard might possibly be the issue. \u201cThe full-backs are a huge problem, the goalkeeper needs to do better, the centre-half looks a nervous wreck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LiverpoolLiverpool manager Arne Slot (left) shakes hands with player Liverpool’s Conor Bradley. Photograph: Nick Potts\/PA <\/p>\n

It is, as we know, an odd game. Arne Slot was the Messiah last season, now he\u2019s the new Ruben Amorim. Conor Bradley was the love-child of Denis Irwin and Cafu in Tuesday Champions League win over Real Madrid, when he nullified Vini Jr, and was the new Diogo Dalot come Sunday when J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku toyed with him. As Gary Neville regularly put it during the game when Doku tortured him, \u201caaaaaggggggh\u201d.<\/p>\n

Still, based on Tuesday\u2019s reception, it\u2019s unlikely that the Liverpool faithful will welcome Trent A-A back any time soon. After all, they regard him as an even greater traitor than Alan Carr.<\/p>\n

Never mind all that, though, judging by the interweb, Sunday\u2019s biggest talking point was that our Roy wasn\u2019t wearing a poppy. Please Lord, make it stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For those of a certain vintage, there was a spell when all Shamrock Rovers did was win doubles.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[1264,18,6433,19,17,13537,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-172422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-cork-city-fc","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-fai-cup","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-shamrock-rovers","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115523078268651096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}