{"id":595744,"date":"2026-08-17T06:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595744\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T06:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:28:11","slug":"kenny-hails-guts-and-teenage-duo-after-pats-down-hoops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595744\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenny hails guts and teenage duo after Pat&#8217;s down Hoops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A thrilling extra-time victory against Shamrock Rovers in FAI Cup third round is an outcome that St Pat&#8217;s Athletic manager Stephen Kenny hopes will give his side momentum as they chase something tangible in the last few weeks of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Coming from two goals down to force extra-time and then to see teenage prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/soccer\/2026\/0816\/1588078-teenager-rooney-helps-saints-seal-comeback-against-hoops\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sam Rooney fire home the winning goal with aplomb<\/a> will no doubt please the manager.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Luke Turner getting that goal back, and then being so influential in that [winning] goal, just tremendous guts from the players,&#8221; was Kenny&#8217;s immediate reaction to RT\u00c9 Sport afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>All part of the narrative at Richmond Park that also saw Pat&#8217;s frontman Aidan Keena level things from the spot, despite Ed McGinty&#8217;s best efforts, in the 90th minute.<\/p>\n<p>There also was a downside with injuries to Kian Leavy and Simon Power, though tempered somewhat by the introduction of Rooney and Ryan Sheridan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A brilliant victory for us but overshadowed by the serious injuries to Kian Leavy and Simon Power,&#8221; Kenny added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our thoughts are with Kian Leavy and Simon Power at the moment. It&#8217;s tough for the two of them but then we had the players who came in from our academy &#8211; Ryan Sheridan and Sam Rooney &#8211; and they both did brilliantly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sam got the winner which was great to see and he and Ryan made a big difference.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sam Rooney of St Patrick's Athletic, right, celebrates with teammate Aidan Keena after scoring winning goal against Shamrock Rovers in 2026 FAI Cup\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0024d9ad-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nSam Rooney, right, celebrates with teammate Aidan Keena after scoring the winning goal against at Richmond<\/p>\n<p>For the Pat&#8217;s boss beating the team above them in the league and knocking out the holders carries weight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Shamrock Rovers are a great team, double winners, but for us it was an important win,&#8221; he summarised.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It gives us momentum. We have an important game in the league on Friday against. We are firmly fixed on that, that will be a tough game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kenny keen to emphasise the one-game-at-a-time approach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You have to separate the league and cup. We won at this stage against Shelbourne last year and got beaten in the semi-final (by Cork City). It [today&#8217;s win] only gets you into the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a great night for the club and for the league to see a 3-2 game like that; first and second in the league playing in the cup like that. A comeback victory, and we needed that.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A thrilling extra-time victory against Shamrock Rovers in FAI Cup third round is an outcome that St Pat&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-595744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}