Even after knocking out Portuguese side Santa Clara, the manager\u2019s statement sounded a little over-ambitious.<\/p>\n
Not now. Rovers take a 3-1 lead to Rrogozhin\u00eb with a playoff against Norway\u2019s Lillestr\u00f8m to follow in order to reach the second tier of European football.<\/p>\n
Time to start daydreaming about away days against Juventus and AC Milan.<\/p>\n
The difference in prize money from qualifying for the Conference versus the Europa League is \u20ac1.2 million.<\/p>\n
A respectable post-Bank Holiday crowd of 5,047 showed up in Tallaght to watch Graham Burke and Jack Byrne bamboozle the Albanian champions. Imagine the rush for tickets if Bournemouth, Sunderland and Crystal Palace are on the menu?<\/p>\n
Suddenly, after a decade of steady building, these are the sort of fixtures Rovers can start to envisage for the 2026\/27 campaign.<\/p>\n
Egnatia recruit from football hotbeds like Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Brazil, as Bradley, now in his 11th season as Rovers boss, quietly redesigns his team with Waterford\u2019s Tunmise Sobowale, Mount Merrion academy graduate Adam Brennan and Limerick winger Will Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n
![\"Olunatunnmise](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6K6ICZVGRZCA7KJN6EJY6NEIYU.jpg\")
Olunatunnmise Sobowale, Jack Byrne and Dylan Watts celebrate after Shamrock Rovers’ third goal. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n
Bradley still relies on veterans, namely Byrne, Burke and Dylan Watts, to get the job done. But the mixture of old and new Hoops had Egnatia\u2019s multinationals struggling to cope with the slow-slow, quick-quick approach that is forcing European opposition to take Rovers seriously.<\/p>\n
Country by country. The Albanians are the latest to view Rovers as easy pickings only to realise the amateur Irish side\u2019s employment of the standard \u2018British\u2019 approach is long behind the Dubliners on these high-tempo Tallaght nights.<\/p>\n
Fitzgerald caught the eye early on. In only his second game since Sligo Rovers sold their captain for \u20ac75,000, he was a threat down the right. Inside two minutes, the 27-year-old pick-pocketed Brazilian left back Andrey Yago, fed the ball to Burke, who drew a corner after a neat one-two with Aaron Greene.<\/p>\n
Burke found the target twice more before he wrong-footed Mario Dajsinani to slot a 29th-minute penalty after a foul on Dylan Watts.<\/p>\n
That put Burke one clear of Roy Keane and Robbie Keane with 16 goals in Uefa club competitions.<\/p>\n
Brennan might have scored earlier, when Byrne\u2019s delicious ball caught the visitors on the hop. Eneo Britri scurried back to unburden the teenager before he could test Dajsinani.<\/p>\n
The Latvian officials gave Egnatia a penalty five minutes before half-time following a prolonged consultation with VAR. Ed McGinty made a tremendous save to deny Guillem Jaime, only to fumble the wet ball and invite the Spanish wing back to finish the rebound.<\/p>\n
![\"Guillem](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CRV44B5JAQD2AZBWI2AFPUSY4E.jpg\")
Guillem Jaime scores for Egnatia. Photograph: Damien Eagers\/PA <\/p>\n
At 1-1, Rovers had to start all over again. The element of surprise vanished as Fitzgerald and Burke were denied the space they had been enjoying.<\/p>\n
No worries. Bradley and his on-field general merely altered the point of attack, with Egnatia punished twice in two minutes by Byrne corners.<\/p>\n
Lopes headed the first before Greene was initially credited with a touch to make it 3-1 but the Rovers players flocked to credit Byrne\u2019s impossible-to-defend delivery. Uefa updated at full-time to give the Ireland midfielder his olimpico.<\/p>\n
Afolabi replaced Greene and really should have made it 4-1, when Burke set him up from a quick break, but the big striker missed the target.<\/p>\n
Afolabi had a few more chances, and despite the introduction of Naj Razi and Danny Mandroiu, the search for a fourth goal came up short.<\/p>\n
SHAMROCK ROVERS: <\/b>McGinty; Sobowale, Lopes, Stevens; Fitzgerald, Watts (Razi 69), Healy, Byrne (O\u2019Reilly-O\u2019Sullivan 77), Brennan (Mulraney 46); Burke (Mandroiu 69); Greene (Afolabi 58).<\/p>\n
EGNATIA:<\/b> Dajsinani; Jamie, Sota, Bitri, Aliyev (Ajetovikj 69), Yago (Ndreca 81); Medeiros, Kryeziu, Diabete (Albanese 46), Gruda (Loukili 46); Daniel (Montenegro 46).<\/p>\n
Referee:<\/b> As Treimanis (Latvia).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Europa League third-round qualifier, first-leg: Shamrock Rovers 3 (Burke pen 29, Lopes 55, Byrne 57) Egnatia 1 (Jaime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,42433,19,17,4334,13537,132,23954],"class_list":["post-621226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-eire","tag-europa-league","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-match-report","tag-shamrock-rovers","tag-sports","tag-stephen-bradley"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621226","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=621226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}