STEPHEN BRADLEY watched Shamrock Rovers dismantle Dundalk and declared: ‘That’s been coming’.
The champions finally registered a first win of the season at the seventh time of asking with a 4-0 demolition of the Lilywhites at Oriel Park.
They were helped by Robbie Benson’s sending off in the 31st minute but were already a goal to the good through Rory Gaffney.
READ MORE: Shamrock Rovers up and running in Dundalk rout
And they piled on the pressure thereafter with Lee Grace, Johnny Kenny and Graham Burke all hitting the net.
Bradley hailed that ruthless streak and hopes it is the spark that ignites their season as the Hoops chase four league titles in a row.
It was Rovers’ first win at Oriel Park since late 2020 and Bradley said: “That scoreline, not so much the performance because that’s been there, has been coming.
“I’ve been saying it for a few weeks but the difference on Friday night was that we
took four of our chances and it looks like a completely different game.”
Benson’s dismissal made it a different game too, but Bradley feels his team were well on top regardless.
“We were controlling the game and causing them real problems,” he said. “We probably should have been one or two up at that stage.
“When Robbie Benson got sent off, it completely killed them. We just took control of the game. It was nice to see that we were ruthless and kept going for them.
“When you know you’re going to have a lot of the ball, you can become a bit sloppy and complacent and anything can happen at the back end of a game.
“But we didn’t, we really put our foot down and scored four but it could have been more.”
And Bradley added: “We’ve been the top scorers for the last three years and on Friday we took our chances.
“It’s like it was a completely different performance but it wasn’t - it was the same levels and we’ve just taken our chances.”
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