Stephen Bradley says his team’s recent slump is a reminder of how high their performance levels have been for the last few seasons as they prepare for their Conference League play-off.
The Hoops are set to welcome KuPS, of Finland, to Tallaght on Thursday evening in the first of two games that could go a long way towards defining their season.
Bradley has led the club to back-to-back group stages in Europe’s lowest tier of club competition, on top of an appearance there in the 2022/23 season, something which has brought over €15million of prize money into the coffers in west Dublin.
Their home form has remained consistently excellent all season, with just one league defeat there against Sligo. They’ve won all their home games in Europe, defeating Floriana 5-1, Ararat-Armenia 2-1 and Egnatia 3-1.
But it’s the the Hoops’ away form that derailed their ambitions in recent weeks, with Bradley calling the 5-1 reversal to Egnatia last week, ‘the worst performance I’ve ever seen from us.’
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After following that up by relinquishing their grip on the FAI Cup from 2-0 up away to St Patrick’s Athletic, the pressure is on Rovers to deliver another big result in Tallaght to take to Finland next week.
“Our three home performances in Europe have been the best we’ve ever had in Europe,” Bradley told RTÉ Sport ahead of the game.
“But you could have flipped that and said our away performances have been as bad as we’ve had.
“So we need to rectify that.”
With hopes of another double dashed, and progress to the group stages of the Europa League – a stated aim of Bradley at the end of last season – missed, there’s even greater emphasis on these two games.
Back-to-back defeats are rare for Bradley’s all-conquering league leaders, but he says the performances his side have put in over the last few seasons are the reason why this current blip is so noteworthy.
“That’s down to the players and the quality and the level that they’ve been at for years,” he said.
“They’ve made it look easy; it’s not easy. They’ve made it look so. Sometimes people can get a little bit complacent with that. On Thursday (against Egnatia) it wasn’t acceptable, we know that.
“But Sunday (cup exit to Pat’s) is acceptable. You can accept that, it happens. We’re competing in all forms and sometimes you come up short. We came up short on Sunday.
“These players went to the well on Sunday and that’s all you can ask for. You don’t do what they’ve done – and continue to do – in terms of raising the standards and the bar and being successful. You don’t do that unless you’re vulnerable.
“And when you’re vulnerable, at times you’re going to lose; we lost on Sunday.”
Last week’s heavy defeat to Egnatia was a low point in Stephen Bradley’s reign
For Bradley, the money progress would bring doesn’t come into things – “as players and staff you never talk about financially” – although it’s worth noting the figures.
Securing qualification to the league phase for the third year in a row would be worth €3.17m, with €400,000 on offer for each subsequent victory thereafter. On top of that, the higher a club finishes in the 36-team table in the Conference League, the more money they receive under the new ‘league ranking bonus’ introduced by UEFA.
All told, there’s potential for Rovers to add millions into the bank account by Christmas, and potentially beyond.
But all of that could be lost if the Hoops can’t turn their form around in the next two games and, with that in mind, Bradley isn’t underestimating the opposition.
KuPS are top of the Finnish Veikkausliiga, five points clear of Inter Turku.
They’ve limited history with League of Ireland teams in European competition, with a 5-4 Conference League qualifier defeat to Derry City three years ago their only taste of action against a club from this country.
But they did make the league phase of the Conference League last season, reaching the knockout stages, where they lost 3-0 to Lech Poznan on aggregate, so the Finnish side will present a Rovers side lacking a little bit of confidence with a massive test.
“Really good team,” Bradley says of the Finns. “Well organised, really good threats, tactically very good.
“They should have gone through in the last round, that was quite clear to see.
“They’re a good team, it’s a real 50-50 game.”