Shamrock Rovers could be missing up to seven first-team regulars for tomorrow’s President’s Cup clash with Derry City.
But Hoops boss Stephen Bradley has revealed that the injury shipped by new signing Liam Burt a week ago is not serious.
Burt, who joined the champions from arch rivals Bohemians over the winter, came off in the first-half of the Leinster Senior Cup win over UCD.
“Liam is fine,” said Bradley.
“It was more a precaution because he got a bang early in the game and we just didn’t feel the need to take any chances with it, especially on the back of a tough week.”
Burt has trained this week and is in contention for a role at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium.
But Sean Kavanagh, Sean Hoare, Sean Gannon, Ronan Finn and Gary O’Neill have all been ruled out of the game, while others are also nursing knocks.
Estonian international Markus Poom has made an instant impact at the champions, with the midfielder scoring and providing two assists in that win over UCD.
Bradley said: “Markus was excellent and has been for all of pre-season. It helps that he watched quite a bit of us last season, so he knows how we play.
“There are still little details that he needs to become familiar with but I’m sure he will over the next few weeks. It’s been a really positive start from Markus.”
And in a warning to rivals, Bradley added: “I feel the squad is the strongest that we’ve had in quite some time. The competition for places is really strong.
“Stephen McPhail has worked extremely hard making the transfers happen and the board have backed itl. We’re really happy with the business we’ve done.”
Tomorrow’s game is the curtain-raiser for the new League of Ireland season and Bradley wants to win the President’s Cup having done so last year.
“There’s a trophy there to be won and we’ll try and do that,” he added. We’ll go up to try to win the game. It should be a good game and it’ll get us ready for Sligo in a week.”
