SHAMROCK ROVERS boss Stephen Bradley has said Rovers Europa win will 'financially help the club after his side beat KF Shkupi 2-1 in the second leg of their Europa League play-off game on Tuesday.
Rory Gaffney and Aidomo Emhaku scored Rover's goals and with that the League of Ireland Champions won 5-2 on aggregate.
The League of Ireland champions will now play Hungarian champions Ferencvaros for a place in the group stages of Europe's second tier competition.
However, the hoops will be playing in the group stages of the Europa Conference League, if Ferencvaros beat them.
Rovers last and only visit to the group stages of the Europa League was in the 2011/2012, where they played English side Tottenham Hotspur, Rubin Kazan of the Russian Premier League and PAOK.
Bradley admitted that it was a goal to reach the group stages again.
"It's something tomorrow evening when I'm sitting down with a glass of wine with my wife that I'll definitely have a look at and think it's something that we set out to do at the start of the year and we achieved it," Bradley said to RTÉ Sport.
𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬!@ShamrockRovers have confirmed UEFA Group Stage football with a 1-2 win over FK Shkupi! — SSE Airtricity League (@SSEAirtricityLg) August 9, 2022
The Hoops will face Ferencvaros in a Europa League Play-Off with a spot in the Europa Conference League guaranteed ☘️#LOI pic.twitter.com/vrdENWvhzH
"But we need to know the jobs not done. We're going into the group stages to win games and do our best to get out of the group."
He also added that will help Rovers in the future with financially issues
It's so important for every club around Europe, not just in Ireland," he said to RTÉ Sport.
"We know financially what it means to us and everyone at the club knows that. But we also need to understand that the club hasn't been built on group stages.
"We learned those lessons long ago. We've had a steady plan and obviously this has been one of our aims, but it hasn't been all or nothing.
"But we're delighted to get there, and we know how much financially it's going to help the club which is brilliant."
He also told the Irish outlet what he thought of his team's performance on the night and described it as 'fantastic'
"I'm delighted. I thought the players were fantastic tonight. We knew we had to go up a few levels from last week and I felt we did that tonight and we limited them to very little and possibly should have scored another couple more on what a really poor pitch and difficult weather was wise, and I thought we handled all that well," he said.
"The pleasing aspect was that we attacked the game to win it which was really good to see that. It takes a lot of character from the players, and they've done that."
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