Stephen Bradley spoke to shamrockrovers.ie ahead of meeting The New Saints. Tickets are available for this game on shamrockrovers.ie and at the stadium tomorrow evening. Kick off is at 5.45pm

It was a case of so near, but yet, so far as a late Shelbourne winner away in Derry denied us a fifth title in a row as we did our job by beating Waterford 2-1. Did our late and maybe unexpected late run at the title make the runners-up spot any less disappointing?

“Not really. As I said before, if we’re being honest with ourselves we haven’t been good enough over the course of the season. We can talk about late runs, nearly getting there but we haven’t been good enough and that’s the simple fact. You can talk about the penalty in Derry, but we put ourselves in the position where you’re relying on another result and that’s not our standards, so it hasn’t been good enough domestically this year.”

The final whistle in Derry really took the energy from a sold-out Tallaght Stadium, it must have been a very strange end of league season lap of honour and dressing room afterwards for the group.

“Yes it was. We’re obviously gutted like everyone in the ground. The players and staff are no different. It hurts, it stings, it’s meant to hurt, we’ve held the title for a long time. But maybe it’s a little kick up the backside that we all needed.”

The club held the Player of the Year Awards night the night after the Waterford game. Johnny Kenny and Dylan Watts won the Young Player and Senior Player of the Year respectively. There’s little doubt that both fully deserved those awards.

“Yes they did. Both have been brilliant and it’s why they won those awards, both are worthy winners. I think I’ve said a number of times, Dylan has been the best player in the country this year for me. Only for Johnny’s injury which kept him out for a number of weeks, he’s scored approaching twenty goals this season. So both are deserved winners and I’m delighted for them.”

While it’s hugely disappointing we relinquished our league title, as you’ve said countless times, the group is great at moving on quickly regardless the result of a game or indeed league season. How exciting and important is this massive UEFA Conference League phase game against TNS for everyone so soon after the league season’s end?

“It’s great we have such a big game straight after the league finishing. If we weren’t in this position in Europe, we’d have a few months to sit and dwell on what could’ve been or what happened. But this team’s strength has always been moving on quickly, win, lose or draw. The fact we have such a big game tomorrow gives you no option but to move on. Monday morning the players were in, they were brilliant and ready to go. You could see they were focussed, and they worked hard. We know we’re against a tough team tomorrow night in TNS, but the players will be ready. They have a chance to create history, to do something that’s never been done in this country before. That’s special and is something we can do tomorrow night.”

You’ll have done all the necessary homework and analysis on TNS, they had a loss and a defeat so far. How do they compare with our two previous opponents in APOEL and Larne and what can we expect to see tomorrow night from them?

“I think TNS are a very good team. I’ve been over to watch them and watched them from afar a number of times. They’ve got quality in their team, a really clear identity in how they play. You can see the manager’s philosophy is clear. They beat Astana 2-0 and that could’ve been more, they were really good on the night. So I’ve no doubt we’re in for a really tough game tomorrow but I believe that our players are ready for it. Come the big stage they step up.”

The stakes are huge against TNS in terms of the financial rewards and how either team will stand halfway through the fixtures. If we do get the three points, it puts us in a really strong position to possibly keep playing European football into 2025, albeit with three tough fixtures still to play.

“It puts us in a really strong position if we can win the game. We won’t know for sure but it gives us a really strong chance to play in Europe after Christmas which is what we all want. But we need to focus on tomorrow and what’s in front of us, we’re against a good team so whatever comes off the back of that comes.”

Is Rory Gaffney any closer to being involved for any Conference league games and how are Seán Hoare and Danny Mandroiu and everyone else after the Waterford game?

“To be fair to Rory, he wanted to play and to push it against Waterford. But we made the decision some time back that we need to get Rory ready for pre-season and not worry about this season. We could rush him back and then he has a setback. Rory has tried extremely hard to get back, he actually rang me last week to say he was available but it’s just trying to say to him we need to get this right for next season. So that’s the thinking with Rory even though it’s frustrating for him. Seán Hoare is back running but tomorrow will be too early for him. Danny will definitely miss tomorrow but we’re hoping to get him some minutes in the HJK Helsinki game in two weeks. Seán Kavanagh has a little knock but everyone else is ok.”