Derry City aiming to spoil the party at Tallaght this evening

Shamrock Rovers vs. Derry City

Tallaght Stadium

Tonight, 7pm

Brian Maher says he and his team-mates want to spoil the party at Tallaght this evening.
What could have been a title-defining game has now become a title celebration for Rovers after Derry City dropped points against both Shelbourne and Sligo Rovers over the course of a disappointing week.
But that has not diluted the desire to go to Dublin and win tonight, with Maher insisting they want to beat Rovers regardless of the changed circumstances. 
 "Party aside for them and whatever they've got planned, we want to beat them," he said. We've had a fairly decent record against them and even in the two games that we didn't win we should have won, so yeah we're going down there looking to win the game, we're going to treat it like any other game and it will be good for us before the cup final."
Ruaidhri Higgins has indicated that his players will acknowledge the champions with a guard of honour before the game, and Maher believes while it is the right thing to do, it will not deflect from the task at hand.
"I don't think anyone wants to do it, but I think we'll have to do that now," he continued. "It's something that we can put in the bank and it will be an experience that we'll not want to do again. We'll go down there wanting to win the game, so doing something for 30 seconds before the game won't change that mindset for us."
 "We put ourselves in a position to chase them down and I think they really took notice of that and I think everyone could see that. But yeah we're disappointed although it has been a strong season and an improvement on last year and it's our first year together as a team."
Maher kept Derry in the game at Sligo with a number of important stops, particularly in the first half, at a ground where City last lost domestically 20 games ago. Since then the Candystripes have been unbeatable in league and cup, a run that saw them push Rovers all the way and also make it into next month's FAI Cup final. 
"We went through a tough time that month and we didn't win for six or seven games," he recalled. "As a new team, we were still gelling together and as the season has gone on, it's become something to be really excited about, how much this team has come on. We drew 0-0 on Monday but you could see it was chalk and cheese from the team that was there in May. 
"Look we want to win every game, but we haven't lost domestically since we last came here in May, so it tells you the run that we've been on, but unfortunately it's come up short, however you could see it's not from the lack of trying."

Difficult
City still need a point to mathematically secure second place this season, but their last two games could not be more difficult, facing the champions before hosting third-placed Dundalk in the final league game of the season at the Brandywell.
"To be fair we have two tough games, as we're playing first and third in the league and to be honest they're probably two games that are good for us before going into the cup final," Maher stated.
 "We need to go into the final flying and because of that playing (Shamrock) Rovers and Dundalk are probably two good games for us."

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