European double a fitting tribute to Horgan

Shelbourne manager Joey O'Brien believes that Thursday night’s League of Ireland European double was a fitting tribute to the late Ollie Horgan.

News of Horgan’s death emerged just hours before kick-off at Windsor Park as Shelbourne defeated Linfield 2-0 to secure their spot in the UEFA Conference League.

Minutes later, Shamrock Rovers joined them after a 2-1 aggregate win over Portugal’s Santa Clara, ensuring the novelty of two Irish sides competing in the league phase in the same season.

Speaking after securing European group-stage football for the first time in the history of the Tolka Park club, it was clear that the former Finn Harps boss had been on O’Brien’s mind.

"It’s a great night for Irish football, Rovers qualifying, ourselves qualifying," he said.

"A legend passing, and for me it was a really fitting night for the two teams to get through with Ollie Horgan passing away.

"I had a few texts with him over the last few weeks and, yeah, such a great man."

On the performance itself, O’Brien spoke with pride at how his side killed the tie in the first half, with Harry Wood and Ali Coote scoring the goals to secure a 5-1 aggregate win and a spot in tomorrow’s draw in Monaco.

"I thought our performance in the first half was really good, we put the game to bed," said O'Brien.

"That’s what we spoke about, going out and attacking the game, get that first goal.

"There was a lot of outside noise but we were just focusing on our performance. I felt in the three previous games against Linfield we hadn't really shown how good a side we are.

Linfield manager David Healy (L) and Joey O'Brien embrace at full time

"When you break it down, last week we defended set plays really poorly. I felt our stuff around the final third hasn’t been great against them; we created a lot of chances and lacked that bit of quality.

"We definitely have that quality in the team and we wanted to show that tonight."

The result – and the history it brings with it – adds another dramatic chapter to a Shels’ season barely requiring it after Damien Duff’s shock departure from the champions in June, but O’Brien said the former manager’s "fingerprints" remained all over the team and that they will likely celebrate the result together over a beer.

For Linfield manager David Healy, no celebrations are required as his side were completely outclassed on their home ground.

Keen to offer his congratulations to not only Shelbourne, but also Rovers boss Stephen Bradley and his team, the former Northern Ireland marksman spoke of the gulf between the two Irish leagues.

"It’s big," Healy said when asked about the gap between the League of Ireland and the Irish League, something that had been evident in the hours beforehand.

"You look at Shamrock Rovers last year, you look at Shelbourne and people will argue that they’re not doing that well this year, but I think they put a lot of effort into Euro games.

"They lost their manager mid-season... Joey looks like [the transition] has been seamless.

"The gap’s big, you know that. I didn't realise how big it was.

"I still felt certainly in the first game there were opportunities, last week was probably out best performance; down to 10 men and moments in the game we didn’t capitalise on.

"Tonight was certainly our worst performance of the four games we played against them."

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