Former Dundalk striker David McMillan anticipates Shamrock Rovers will find The New Saints to be a tougher nut to crack than Larne but believes the Hoops should feel hopeful of benefiting from home advantage and picking up another win in the Conference League on Thursday.
After two games in the League Phase of UEFA's third tier club competition, Stephen Bradley's side remain unbeaten after drawing 1-1 at home to APOEL and following it up with a 4-1 victory over Larne in Belfast.
Another win would move Rovers up to seven points and potentially within striking distance of a historic progression to the play-off round as they try to be among the top 24 teams of the 36 competing in the opening stage.
The back-to-back fixtures against Northern Irish Premiership outfit Larne and Welsh league champions TNS have long been flagged as the two most crucial for the Hoops to try and maximise their points haul.
With one half of the equation ticked off, Rovers will fancy their chances of victory over TNS at Tallaght Stadium on Thursday but McMillan sees reasons to be wary of their Welsh opponents, especially with some familiar faces coming over the Irish Sea.
"Dan Williams played with me at Dundalk for just half a season and was on loan in Stephen O'Donnell's first year.
"He's a good centre midfielder, picked up an injury and had to go back to his loan club after only 6-7 games at the club. He seems to be a mainstay in their midfield.
"And then another player I played with, Declan McManus is their main man up front. He played in Scotland with me and the season I played with him (at Falkirk), he scored 20-odd goals - a brilliant striker.
"He missed the early part of this season but he has five in his last four games so he's certainly one for Irish fans to watch out for in terms of a threat for Shamrock Rovers to manage.
"So you look at that squad and I'm always trying to see players I know to try and gauge a level and I think it's a decent squad that TNS have and it will be a challenge for Rovers, so I think it will definitely be a step up from the level Larne are at."
However, McMillan added that TNS - who earned a Conference League win of their own over Kazakhstan's FC Astana last time out - will have a challenge of their own in the fact that domestic dominance in Wales may make it tricky to raise their level against opponents like Rovers.
"Whereas Shamrock Rovers are playing competitive games every week in the Premier Division here," he continued.
"So I think it will be a tougher task than Larne but obviously having home advantage, you should hope Shamrock Rovers can go and use that.
"It's a really big tie for both games but hopefully Shamrock Rovers can go and win it."
Extra fuel for the fire from a Shamrock Rovers point of view will come from the fact that they will want to right some wrongs after narrowly missing out on a record fifth SSE Airtricity Men's Premier Division title in a row last Friday as Shelbourne came out on top.
"They'll be bitterly disappointed that they weren't able to win the league again and they went out relatively early in the FAI Cup," former UCD, Shamrock Rovers and Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Paul Corry told the podcast.
"So the season hinges on the European campaign and they've put themselves in a brilliant position.
"The Conference League is different to the other European competitions in the sense that you only play six games and the fact that they have four points from their opening two puts them in a really strong position to actually go and get out of the league phase and into the knockout rounds.
"The game against TNS presents a really good opportunity to put another three points on the board, and Stephen Bradley won't be too worried because they've found an extra gear or two in recent weeks and you can see that in their league form but you can also see that in the European performances - both the game at home and the away game against Larne."
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
