Shamrock Rovers playing for pride rather than progression against Ferencváros

UEFA Europa Conference League (second round, 2nd leg)

Shamrock Rovers (0) v Ferencváros (4)

Tallaght Stadium, Kick off: 8pm

With any notions of overturning the tie improbable, redemption for Shamrock Rovers against Hungarian giants Ferencváros must come from their performance at Tallaght Stadium tonight, insists Dylan Watts.

Trailing 4-0 from last week’s first leg in Budapest, there will almost certainly be no repeat of last year’s run to the group stages in Europe for Rovers after bowing out of the Champions League in the first round to Icelandic side Breidablik meant an immediate drop into UEFA’s third tier competition.

If Rovers losing both legs of their first round tie in the Champions League was something of a surprise, Ferencváros’ 3-0 defeat at home to Faroese side Klaksvík ranked as the shock of the round. Rovers duly felt the full brunt of a wounded animal last week.

“That’s it,” agreed midfielder Watts on the need for the morale boost of a win tonight, similar to beating Ferencváros 1-0 with an Andy Lyons goal last year after a 4-0 away leg defeat in the play-off round of the Europa League.

“First and foremost, it’s about putting in a good performance. We know it’s going to be an incredibly difficult task to turn it around, but I think we need to look after the performance first and foremost and see where that takes us.”

A resignation that the game is effectively a dead rubber, tonight is about Stephen Bradley’s side restoring some much needed pride after a dismal run of no wins, and just one goal - and that from a VAR awarded penalty - in six games both domestically and in Europe.

“It’s obviously been a tough couple of weeks, going out of the (FAI) cup and struggling to score goals in the last few games,