The Rovers Season Review 01/11/2026

It's probably somewhere in between the two, Austin.

I think like, as you said, that day we came away very encouraged, even though they had lost.

But when you think back to it, it's funny when you think that they conceded the winner in the 91st minute.

And that was a trend for, I think, the whole season, conceding late goals, squandering leads.

And yeah, look, I suppose you can sit down here and you can pick out any number of reasons why they got relegated and what led to it.

We could sit here and talk about small moments and things that added up.

But like, you know, it's been coming for the last few years, this relegation.

It's been getting harder and harder to compete.

And you're spending more and more money every year just to try to survive.

And I think we kind of knew coming into this season it was going to be difficult.

I'm not sure we realised it was going to be as difficult.

As it became in the end, finishing what, 15 points off? And I know there's many reasons for that as well.

But still, like, yeah, look, recruitment obviously wasn't up to scratch.

The squad obviously wasn't up to scratch.

You'd be a fool if you were to say otherwise when you...

Look at the way the whole thing transpired.

There is a small part of me that thinks that things could have been a lot different had Jad Hakiki not got injured early on.

And again, this has just been the story of Sligo Rovers for the last few years.

As soon as one player gets injured or something happens, it can be detrimental nearly.

And the other part as well is that you know, didn't have a striker early on and they, you know, and it sounds silly but they played really well in a lot of those opening games and they were getting nothing from them and we were all coming away saying if there was a number nine, a striker there, you'd be picking up points and it's funny when you look at, you know, John McGovern was so close to joining Sligar Rovers on loan from Shamrock Rovers and look at how his season has gone.

Don't tell us that.

I know, and look at how his season has gone and I think Sean Boyd was the other one as well who was close to joining on loan and you look back and you think, had one of those joined and, you know, look, they probably would have been recalled from their parent clubs had things gone well.

But even if you got half a season out of them, the picture could have been quite different.

And like, you know, even Owen Eldon leaving and not being replaced and you know we kind of all knew that Owen Eldon was going to go and he wasn't really replaced and yeah look I suppose risks were taken with players that that didn't that didn't work out and then the summer transfer window then between John Russell leaving and Darren Purse coming in there was no real time to kind of get the standard of players in that was needed and I was looking at the tables the other day and I think, am I right in saying that at the mid-season break, Rovers were eight points ahead of Waterford and then Waterford put their run together.

And I think when Darren Purse came in, Sligo Rovers were one point behind and then they finished the season 15 points behind Drogheda in the end.