Dundalk’s Pat Hoban is looking for a slice of personal glory as well as three points when his side host Shamrock Rovers at Oriel Park this evening.
The defending champions welcome the league leaders and Hoban needs just one more goal to become his club’s all-time record scorer with 70 goals.
Dundalk go into the game in third place but are seeking to close the gap on Rovers who are hoping to bounce back from a 1-0 Dublin derby defeat to Bohemians on Tuesday.
While Hoban is eager to secure the goal-scoring record for the Lilywhites, he knows that time is on his side and acknowledges that a win against the Hoops in the most important aim.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, he said: "It’d be brilliant to get three points against Rovers and to score on Friday night, that would top it off brilliantly, wouldn’t it?
"I’ll be trying my hardest to do that. I’ve plenty of games to go on and beat it but I’ll be trying to beat it as soon as possible.
"We’ll play them another three times now so every game against them is going to be massively important in my eyes.
"As you’ve seen the other day, they dropped points and you can drop points to anyone in this league if you’re not on it, so we’ll be looking to go on and win the game.
"That would only leave us four points behind with a game in hand and we’ll be looking to put that pressure on them."
Hoban is hoping for a big crowd at Oriel Park to welcome Rovers and pointed to the attendance of 6,414 at Tallaght on Tuesday as the mark to aim for.
"It should be a packed house. I saw them in Tallaght [against Bohemians] and it was unbelievable watching the crowd. There was over 6,000 at the game so hopefully we can have near those numbers on Friday night because it is a big game.
"It’s not the be all and end all, there’s still a long way to go, but I do feel that we’re right up for it."
