The Champions League Second Qualifying round, First Leg tie kicks off in Tallaght Stadium at 8 pm Irish time. Tickets are selling quickly and are available here. The match will be streamed worldwide (except in Czechia and Slovakia) on LOITV. Stream passes are available now (season passes are not valid)

After the drama, emotion and importance of last Tuesday’s Champions League winning tie over Vikingur Reykjavik, Friday’s 1-0 exit from the FAI Cup to Bohs couldn’t have been in starker contrast.

“No, it couldn’t and that’s the joy of football. It gives you incredible highs and also takes you to really low places as well. When you’re operating at the level we have done for a number of years, playing big games every few days, the nature of sport is you’re going to win some and lose some. We’re really disappointed about Friday, it’s a competition we wanted to win. Having looked back at it, we just weren’t good enough. You could see Tuesday had taken a bit out of us, but we weren’t good enough on the night. There wasn’t too much in the game, we should’ve been ahead early on, but overall, being honest, we didn’t do enough to win the game.”

Immediately after the Bohs defeat, you stated to SRFCTV we didn’t “show up” on the night and you were reluctant to claim that players were mentally or physically tired after the Vikingur game. You’ve stated on reflection above that maybe that was the case.  Can you tell us what the players thought went wrong after such a disappointing 90 minutes in Dalymount?

“The players were really disappointed. We’ve come off the back of the heavy Tuesday against Vikingur but we don’t want excuses and we don’t look for excuses. But when you look at Friday’s performance there was an element of that. But as I said after the game, I still feel that not enough of the players showed up on the night and if you want to win any game of football, the majority of the players need to show up. We didn’t have that on the night and that was disappointing. We should’ve been ahead early, then Bohs got the penalty to win the game, and that was it. I thought it was a really tight, poor game, no real quality in it from either team. But we are better than that and we can’t go from the level of performance against Vikingur to what it was on Friday. That was the really disappointing bit, it cost us and we are out of the FAI Cup.”

You’ve often stated, win, lose or draw, this group is excellent at moving on from results. That will certainly need to be so as Sparta Prague arrive in Tallaght Stadium tomorrow.

“That’s what we’ve always done. Win, lose or draw you have to enjoy the moment of the night when you win, but you move on quickly the next day. That’s no different then whether you draw or lose. You can’t dwell on things, you have to understand them, try to understand what happened and why it happened, see where mistakes were made, then move on as the next one is right in front of you. If we’re still thinking about Friday when we play Sparta, we’re in trouble because we’re against high level opposition so it’s about coming back in yesterday, moving on quickly and getting ready for Sparta tomorrow night.”

Sparta will be a level up from Vikingur. They just started their league season on Friday with a 2-1 win. What can you tell us about Sparta in terms of their style of play and set up?

“They’re a team that operates at a really high level and have done for a number of years. You just have to look at the number of players they had at the recent European Championships, they are really high level opposition. They are probably up there with the best we have played in my time here so we know we are up against a top team with international players all around it. But our aim is to try and win the game and ultimately the tie, that’s why we’re here and where we want to be. We know what we’re up against it but that’s the aim.”

Another big Tallaght crowd is expected, they answered the call against Vikingur, but like the team, the crowd will also need to up their levels and make it difficult for the Czech team.

“The crowd were brilliant last week against Vikingur and also in Dalymount on Friday. So we can’t ask much more from them, other than showing up again, which they have done for us. We’ll need them to be as loud as possible again tomorrow. We’re going to need everything to go our way tomorrow night, all the bits of luck, the crowd and the energy because we know where they’re strong. But we also feel we can hurt them so the crowd will be a really important part of that.”

Jack Byrne is suspended, Rory Gaffney is still out, did everyone emerge ok from Bohs on Friday and are any of Graham Burke, Aaron McEneff and Markus Poom back for this game?

“Markus is back, Rory will still be another few weeks, Aaron and Graham should be available for the away leg against Sparta. We have a few knocks from Friday but nothing major so we’re all good there.”