Tallaght Stadium is Sligo Rovers’ destination this bank holiday Monday evening as the Bit O’Red travel to Dublin for the third time this season, this time to take on Shamrock Rovers. Supporters are reminded kick-off time has been revised to 7pm. 

Rovers go into this one on the back of home draws against Cork City and Drogheda United, while the Hoops are without a win in four having played out draws with Cork, Shels and Pat’s and were recently beaten by rivals Bohemians who Sligo Rovers face at the Showgrounds this coming Saturday.

Tallaght hasn’t been the happiest of hunting grounds for John Russell’s men recently. Our last win at the south Dublin venue was back in 2021 and since then, Sligo have lost in each of our seven visits. 

However, Sligo Rovers did win the last meeting between these two teams back in March at the Showgrounds. A Reece Hutchinson strike before half-time was cancelled out by Graham Burke, but Sligo skipper John Mahon struck for what was our first win of the season twelve minutes from time. 

Rovers head to the capital again with Ollie Denham and Oskar Van Hattum, both of who are continuing to recover from injury and are Russell’s only injury concerns. 

Speaking to sligorovers.com ahead of the game, the Rovers boss says he wants to see his team improve defensively but is full of optimism ahead of what will be a challenging contest.  

“Every ground you visit in this league is a tough place to go to”, he says. “There simply just aren’t any games that aren’t tough and Monday will be the same. Our record up there isn’t great but we’re using that as motivation to go and give a good account of ourselves. 

“We’ve been the architects of our own downfall at times this season and have given other teams headstarts. We’ve been so impressive going forward, creating chances and scoring goals and I’m really happy with that. But what’s been killing us is the concession of silly goals. 

“If you make it easy for the opposition somewhere like Tallaght, then chances are you’re not coming back from it so we need to be on our game from the start. 

“We’ve a good group here and we know what we can achieve this season if we get things right. We showed against Shamrock Rovers in Sligo in March that we can put it up to the strongest teams in this league. We just need to get the basics right and our talent will bring us the rest of the way.

“We’re really looking forward to this one and hopefully it’ll be a good evening for us.”

David Goulden