Sligo Rovers face into a busy week at the Showgrounds as the Bit O’Red go up against both Waterford and Dundalk at home in the space of seven days.
First up is this Saturday’s meeting with the Blues as Rovers look to continue our good spell of form, this time against Jon Daly’s men. Kick-off at the Showgrounds is 7.45pm and supporters are reminded that all under 12s will receive free admission to the game, once they are accompanied by a paying adult.
This weekend’s match sponsor is Foxford based Chrissy’s Chippy and match ball sponsor is Cosgrove’s Centra, Maugheraboy.
This will be the second meeting of these sides after February’s scoreless draw at the RSC. Waterford’s Padraig Amond missed a penalty early in the second half, while Rovers were aggrieved to not have a spot-kick of their own late on when Will Fitzgerald was tripped inside the Waterford area.
Rovers come into this game on the back of a draw at home to Derry and a superb win away to Bohs last week. Goals from Fitzgerald and Sean McHale led Sligo to our first victory on the road this season and meant John Russell’s side are the only team to beat the Dubliners so far this term.
Daly has steadied the ship in the south east somewhat in the last few weeks. Their scheduled game with Drogheda was called off last week, 45 minutes before kick-off due to poor weather. But they will arrive in Sligo in good spirits having taken points off both Shamrock Rovers and Bohs and have a decent recent record at the Showgrounds with wins at the Church Hill venue in both 2024 and 2025.
Russell will face Waterford without Seb Quirk, Ryan O’Kane, Conor Reynolds and Sean Stewart all of whom are injured as of Friday morning.
However, Ciaron Harkin is expected to be available once again and this news is supplemented by the return at Dalymount last Friday of both Jad Hakiki and Shane Blaney, who were both sprung from the bench in the second half of that game.
James McManus also returns to the match-day squad having sat out that tie in Phibsboro due to the terms of his loan.
“We’re still missing a few lads but it’s a big bonus to have Jad, Shane, Ciaron and James back with us”, Russell tells sligorovers.com.
“All four play a huge role in what we’re about and we were really pleased with how Jad and Shane did when they came on against Bohs. We’ve been unlucky this year with injuries and although we still have key players out, we’ll hopefully get a few more back in as the weeks go on. We’ll be a real force once we have everyone back in.”
Russell is expecting a particularly tough encounter on Saturday as both Rovers and Waterford look to bridge the gap between the bottom two and the rest.
“We’ve both had good results in our respective last two games”, he says.
“They obviously had an extra few days away from play with their game being called off and we took a few extra hours to get to Dublin last week. Is that an advantage? I’m not sure but time will tell.
“They’ll look at Saturday and know that a result for them pulls them towards us with a game in hand and they’ll be coming here looking for that. Games against Waterford are always tight.
“We know if we can do enough to pick up a win, it potentially lifts us away from the bottom two depending on results on Friday. But we’re at home and we always back ourselves in front of our own supporters. It’s a huge carrot for us to chase and we definitely have it in us if we do our jobs well.”
David Goulden