'He was awful, that's the worst I've seen Josh' - Shamrock Rovers star heads for Ireland duty on a low
STEPHEN BRADLEY ADMITTED he was considering making substitutions after five minutes of his side's 0-0 draw with Galway United last night.
The first player to be hooked by the Shamrock Rovers boss was Josh Honohan 14 minutes into the second half.
The defender will link up with the Republic of Ireland this weekend after earning a place in the international squad for the upcoming friendlies with Senegal and Luxembourg.
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Head coach Heimir Hallgrímsson and assistant John O'Shea were both at Tallaght Stadium to see what Bradley described as Honohan's low point in the League of Ireland.
'He was awful. That's the worst I've seen Josh. That's the worst I've ever seen him. I've watched him for Cork [City], obviously before we signed him, we signed him here. That's the worst I've seen him. He was extremely poor,' Bradley said.
'It's not nice but he's been brilliant for us. He's obviously got his call-up, deserved it. He's doing great, well done, but he was a million miles off what he has been in every aspect and it's not good enough.
'It's not good enough for us, it's not good enough for Ireland, I'm sure. It's not good enough for anyone. He's been playing at an incredibly high level but you can't come off as much as… and it wasn't just him, it was the whole team in the first half. But Josh was really poor. I'm quick enough to give him credit, and you have to call it straight. It wasn't good enough.
'It wasn't [just] him. There was so much in it. You look at the first five minutes we had four or five goal kicks and Galway end up on attack off every one of them. It was so sloppy what we were doing.
'It wasn't just him.. It was the team, as a whole, it was really, really poor. We know that. We know our standards, we know our levels and Galway deserved credit. But we were poor.'
Bradley said Galway were full value for their point and even with a six-point lead at the top of the Premier Division heading into the mid-season break the Hoops' boss was adamant it'd be foolish to step off the gas despite some proclaiming the title race close to being completed.
'We've been around long enough. We've won so much and achieved so much, and broke so many records, because we know that's nonsense.
'In May, talking about leagues being over. If you believe that, you might as well go home. That's not this league. That's not how this operates. It's not any league. It's not this league. First-half felt like that, felt like we thought we'd be okay.
'The players have been excellent to this point. But, like I said, the first half we were so far off what we have been. We were slow, we were sloppy in everything we did in and out of possession, we weren't seeing pictures clearly enough, quick enough.
'And again, Galway deserve credit, they deserve a lot of credit. But we need to analyse it and try and understand why we were so far off it.'
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