SLIGO ROVERS boss Paul Cook will be looking for his side to replicate their brilliant cup form on the European stage on Thursday.

 

The Bit O'Red meet Ukrainian outfit FC Voskla Poltava in an intriguing UEFA Europa League Third Qualifying Round first leg (6.00pm Irish).

Cook's side won both the FAI Ford Cup and EA SPORTS Cup last year and have continued to progress in both those competitions this term.

Sligo did not make the same headway in European competition last year but Cook feels they are ready for this season's challenge.

“We are looking forward to it. Sometimes you don’t like distractions in that we‘re really focusing on our title challenge. Everyone would agree that is what we‘re trying to do. But this is a great experience for us and we are keen to acquit ourselves well," said Cook.

“We’ve studied them on DVDs and looked at how they play. They have a similar system to us in a sense. They look a very good side and we‘ll have to be at our best. We have looked at a few ways we can exploit and get at them. Our players will know what we want to do and we’ll see how it works out.

“We know how we like to play and we’ll get the balance right. We can’t go there with a kamikaze approach and risk shipping early goals. The opening stages will tell us a lot and if we go there and play well I think we can come away with a good scoreline to take back to The Showgrounds.

“There are things like dehydration and fatigue in the heat to consider. Our preparation will be geared with that but we are a fit team. It can be a factor in the last 10 or 15 minutes where you tire and you don’t want to concede so we’ll change things if we need to."