'We want to make a statement' - Derry midfielder Adam O’Reilly

Derry City vs. Shamrock Rovers  |  Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium  |  Friday, 7:45pm

Midfielder Adam O’Reilly wants the Brandywell roar to be in full swing as leaders Shamrock Rovers visit tomorrow evening.

The Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium will be packed to the rafters with over 5,000 expected in attendance and O’Reilly wants the tremendous support to play a big part in the contest.

“I said it a few weeks ago, we want teams to come to the Brandywell and fear us, so yeah we want to make a statement,” he stated.

“Obviously they’re a great footballing team, who are on a fantastic run, but we’re on a good run ourselves at the moment and want to keep that going.

“It’s a massive game and as I said they’re a good team, with a lot of great players in their squad, but at the same time so do we and I think it’s all to play for at the moment.”

Derry City head into this weekend's top of the table clash in their best form of the season, winning five of their last seven league games, with Dom Thomas' late equaliser at Drogheda extended the unbeaten run to four games. The importance of that late goal at Sullivan and Lambe Park was not lost on O'Reilly.

“I think remaining unbeaten was massive for the mentality and confidence in the squad,” he said. “As I said, obviously coming up against a good team like Rovers, if you can keep carrying the momentum on like that it does help a lot in games, so to get a draw at Drogheda and scoring late on is good, yes, we would have liked the win, but the mentality to get the late equaliser proved that we can keep pushing on.”

The 24-year-old, who set-up Danny Mullen’s winning strike against St Patrick’s Athletic, as his lovely weighted pass created the opening and also played a major role in him picking up the Man of the Match award from that game.

O’Reilly believes the Tiernan Lynch’s side really are starting to find their rhythm and believes a lot of that is because everyone in the squad have produced the goods when called upon.

“The last few games the boys who have come on have made a difference,” he explained.

“Everyone in the team runs themselves into the ground and I think having that mentality is going to bring us far in this league.

“Obviously whenever Dom (Thomas) came on (against Drogheda United) someone needed to produce something special and even if his goal did take a deflection, it was still a big moment for us and fair play to him.

“As I’ve said from the very start, it was early days for the team and the manager but you can see we’re starting to gel as a team, we’ve got a run going at the moment and we want to keep that going.

“We’re also bringing boys back as well so we can only just keep going and growing from here.”

The Cork man was pleased that the Brandywell side didn’t let their heads drop at Sullivan & Lambe Park and they kept going right to the death and he felt in the end they deserved a point.

“Look, we got our goal in the end but it’s still frustrating at the same time, because we don’t want to come and draw games, we want to come and win,” he added.

“I think that’s the mentality everyone has, but look we’ll still take a point, because Drogheda are a tough team to play against.”

Meanwhile, Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley insists the best is still to come from his team after their 4-0 demolition of St. Patrick's Athletic on Monday night.

With Derry City sitting in second five points behind, Bradley’s side will be looking to make it five wins on the bounce to further extend their lead this Friday at the Brandywell.

“What Derry have is very similar to St Pat’s, their attacking players can win games and score goals and that is what they have done,” he added.

“They get the crowd involved for their home games. It is always a cracking atmosphere up there and we enjoy that pitch, it’s a big pitch.

“I know it is an astro but we like it and it should be a good game.

“The squad is in a really good place. It’s still early but I’ve always maintained we get better from this point. There are so many more levels left in this team. We are only getting going. We will only get better as the season goes on. We are nowhere near peaking. If you are peaking in May, you are in trouble.