Today's Pre-Season Friendlies Report
Shamrock Rovers welcomed Longford Town & Bray Wanderers to our Roadstone Academy Complex today, as Stephen Bradley's side continued their pre-season preparations ahead the beginning of the 2022 League of Ireland season next month.
Shamrock Rovers 1-1 Longford Town
Our first opponents of the day were Longford Town, in a 12pm kick-off against Gary Cronin's side at Roadstone.
Stephen Bradley's side - which contained the likes of Jack Byrne, Lee Grace & Ronan Finn - got off the the perfect start, when Dara McGuinness opened the scoring after only four minutes, following a goal-mouth scramble inside the Longford Town penalty area.
Both sides used up their benches throughout the game, with Rovers finishing the game with a different XI to the one that began the game. The visitors netted an equaliser with just three minutes remaining on the clock through one of their trialists (Cristian Magerusan), and they did enough to see out the game level.
Shamrock Rovers: Alan Mannus (65' Toms Leitis); Oisin Hand (60' Eric Abudiore), Lee Grace (60' Orlandas Jakas), Barry Cotter (60' Eammanuel Milongo); Ronan Finn (C) (60' Gavin O'Reilly), Richie Towell (46' Gideon Tetteh), Chris McCann (60' Cian Curtis), John Ryan (60' Corey O'Sullivan); Jack Byrne (60' Jack McCormack), Dara McGuinness (60' Mickey Raggott), Rory Gaffney (46' Zayd Abada).
Longford Town: Lee Steacy, Mick McDonnell, Ben Lynch, Shane Elworthy, Dylan Barnett, Aaron Robinson, Matthew O'Brien, Eric Molloy, Darren Craven, Trialist A, Trialist B.
Shamrock Rovers 2-3 Bray Wanderers
Our second game of the afternoon saw us host Pat Devlin's Bray Wanderers side in a 4pm kick-off in Roadstone. Similarly to the first game of the day, Rovers wasted no time in getting on with things and opened the scoring after 13 minutes through an Aidomo Emakhu finish. Emakhu then turned from scorer to provider ten minutes before the break, when he fed through Conan Noonan to double our lead against The Seagulls.
15 minutes into the second half, Vilius Labutis halved the deficit to make it 2-1, before Stephen Bradley made 11 changes to his side and bringing on some of our up-and-coming academy prospects to finish out the remaining half-an hour.
A Hugh Douglas header from a corner levelled things up after 73 minutes, before Vilius Labutis netted his second of the game in the closing minutes to win the game for The Seagulls.
Shamrock Rovers: Leon Pohls (60' Toms Leitis); Sean Hoare (60' Corey O'Sullivan), Kieran Cruise (60' Orlandas Jakas), Cole Omorehiomwan (60' Eric Abudoire) ; Sean Carey-Jones (60' Nat Razi), Gary O'Neill (60' Justin Ferizaj), Dylan Watts (60' Cian Curtis), Neil Farrugia (60' Jack McCormack); Aidomo Emakhu (60' Eammanueal Milango), Michael Leddy (60' Mikey Raggott), Conan Noonan (60' Dara McGuinness).
Bray Wanderers: Stephen McGuinness (46' Michael Kelly), Zak O'Neill (46' Dan Blackmore), Jack Hudson (46' Dean Casey), Oscar Brennan (46' Hugh Douglas), Kevin Knight (46' Sean Callan), Dean Zambra (46' Eoin Massey), Keith Dalton (46' Vilius Labutis), Ben Feeney (46' Conor Knight), Rob Manley (46' Callum Thompson), Kurtis Byrne (46' Kieran Marty Waters), Paul Fox (46' Darragh Lynch).
*Photo Credit: George Kelly (Official Shamrock Rovers Photographer)*