SOCCER: EMMET MALONEtalks to a central figure in Shamrock Rovers' recent league success who is determined to help the club complete the double

THERE MIGHT just be slightly mixed emotions down in the Rice household on Sunday night if Shamrock Rovers have completed their double by then. Certainly, don’t go mentioning the “romance of the cup”, around the place; not after the way Stephen claims he carried on in the wake of the league win a couple of weeks back. “Yeah,” he says with a laugh, “I slept with the trophy. The missus wasn’t too happy. She was in the spare room.”

Not that anyone back at the club would begrudge him a special moment with Rovers’ first big piece of silverware of its era. Given the pace of change about the place over the last few years, Rice seems like something of a fixture in the set-up after just three seasons in a hooped green and white shirt and this year he certainly made his presence felt.

Since Dan Murray was sidelined with a knee injury, the 26-year-old midfielder has captained the side but for long stretches of the campaign he has been its beating heart, directing things when allowed to from what is probably his best position, between defence and midfield.

He has also played his part wherever he has been required to: whether in central midfield, out on the right or even at right back where he ended up when Michael O’Neill’s options were almost exhausted over the last few weeks.

Rice, as it happens, made his breakthrough back at Bohemians in a number two shirt, filling in for a couple of seasons there at Dalymount Park before Séan Connor gave him a chance to play the more influential role Stephen Kenny had hoped he might grow into when signing him.

Manager and player fell out rather spectacularly, though, when an attempt was made to agree a new contract with Rice initially banished by Connor from the first-team squad. He returned, briefly, and did well again before departing for Rovers where Pat Scully was preparing for life back in the top flight after that season-long sojourn in the First Division. He almost left Rovers a year or so after arriving but under O’Neill he has flourished and, as of last Friday week in Bray, started to enjoy some long-awaited success.

“He’s a top manager,” says Rice of the northerner. “The club probably took a bit of a risk because he wasn’t known in the league and the league wasn’t known to him. But he’s great on a personal level and on the game. He’s helped me improve as a player. He notices your strengths and your weaknesses and he talks you through them. He’s great with all of the lads in the dressingroom. He has the whole package.”

The challenge the champions face from Sligo Rovers in Sunday’s Ford-sponsored FAI Cup final, they realise, will probably be the equal of anything they came up against in those last few, nerve-wracking weeks of the title race. “We know we’re up against a very good side,” says the player who recently took on a coaching and development role with the FAI and Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown County Council. “There’s a lot of work to be done on Sunday. They’ve had an excellent season. They’ve won a cup and finished third in the league. But we’ll do our best.”

Rice is excited by the prospect of playing at the Aviva Stadium in front of a crowd expected to exceed 25,000. He is hoping, in particular, that Helena, his grandmother who watched the league title being clinched on television from a hospital bed, will make it along.

“She’s been in hospital for the last couple of months. But I think she might be able to be there on Sunday which would be great. I dedicated the league medal to her because she was a massive part of how I did it. Essentially, I lived with her, my mother and my granda, so she was like a second mother. She was watching the Bray game in hospital that night and the next day I went in and put the league medal around her neck. It’s not just about the players celebrating, it’s the families making the sacrifices because they have to deal with us when things aren’t going right, the girlfriends, the wives, the parents.”

Well that, and getting to cuddle up to the trophies, of course.