1,692 days is a long time in football, if not in the 131-year of history of Shelbourne.
But it really was a deeply impactful spell at Tolka Park as in that period Damien Duff transformed the Reds from First Division winners to Premier Division winners. Three whirlwind years that will live long in the memory of every Shels supporter.
With Duff's departure, it falls into the hands of his former assistant Joey O’Brien to try to continue that success and 2026 will be his first full season in charge.
With O’Brien already having had seven months in the role, there are some indications that Shels may be able to improve on the disappointing title defence they had in 2025.
O’Brien took charge of 14 league games last year and there was a clear improvement in performance, Shels going up from 1.36 points per game under Duff to 2.07 afterwards. A rate of 2.07 per game would bring 75 points over a full season, which is more than the last three league winners accumulated.
The wins also included a victory over champions Shamrock Rovers, something they had failed to do in their first three attempts pre-O’Brien.
The key driver in the improved performance came from an ability to find the net much more regularly. Their defensive record stayed much the same. O’Brien’s Shels scored the same amount as Duff’s despite playing eight fewer games.
Their average of 1.71 goals per game would bring 62 over a full season. This would be more than any team in the last five seasons except for the 2023 Shamrock Rovers side who got 67.
There were two main keys to finding more goals. First was a significant increase in the number of late goals scored. Under Duff, they had just two goals in the final 15 minutes of games. But in the 14 games of O’Brien, they had 11. Nine of his 14 games brought at least one late goal.
It meant they ended the season with the second best record for scoring late. These goals were very valuable as they earned Shels an extra nine points. That returned them to their form in 2024 under Duff where their total of 11 points won was second most in the league.
Only in the final game of 2025 did the Tolka Park club fail to score under O’Brien having done so seven times prior to his appointment.
There were two main sources of these goals. One was a subs bench that scored four of their late goals under O’Brien. Only four other teams had more than four goals by subs all season. The other was Harry Wood providing four. He specialised in scoring at the start or end of halves with his goals coming in the following minutes: 2, 48, 3, 49, 2, 78, 89, 79 and 87.
The second key was in the style of attack the former assistant manager had the team playing. Although they had a slight decrease in shots taken (13.73 to 13.43) their attempts on target went up from 29.8% to 33.9%. Their xG per game went up from 1.38 to 1.74 as average shot distance came down from 19.74m to 18.07m. These numbers show he found a way of getting higher quality chances from a similar quantity.
The clearest stylistic difference was in their crosses. They went up from 16.9 per game with a 30.5% accuracy to 19.3 per game and a 34.5% accuracy. There seems to have been an emphasis on using crosses to generate the kind of chances O’Brien wants for his forwards.
Although it was at a different level, Shels inability to score a single goal in their six Conference League group stage games despite having an xG of 3.99 will be of some concern.
One area where O’Brien differs from Duff is in recruitment. Duff often favoured players with League of Ireland experience but O’Brien has added to his squad from outside. Goalkeeper Wessel Speel and winger Sean Moore had no experience of the division, while Milan Mbeng and Jack Henry-Francis has just half seasons under their belts. But they have worked so far with all bar Moore starting at least five Conference League group stage games.
That looks to be continuing for 2026 with Odhran Casey, Maill Lundgren and Rodrigo Freitas all in line to make league debuts with Shels.
The sample size of 14 games is not huge, and we have all seen many new managers come in and bring a surge in results which cannot be sustained. One similar recent example would be Stephen Kenny’s St Pat’s in 2024. Over his 22 games to the end of that season, they had an average 1.86 points per game. That rate would have topped the table both that season and in 2025. But in 2025 the Saints slipped to just 1.44 points per game and fifth place.
Were O’Brien to replicate Duff’s achievement and win the league title this year, he would become just the third manager to achieve that feat in their first full season as manager this century following Ian Baraclough (Sligo Rovers) and Vinny Perth (Dundalk).
Winners of five of the last six titles Shamrock Rovers go into this season again as favourites. But Shels are the one other club with a group of players who know what it takes to win a title. The two teams meet at Tolka Park in week two of the season giving O’Brien an early chance to put a marker down.
In his short time in charge so far, O’Brien has shown he can get results. What we will see over the course of the long 2026 season will be whether they have the staying power to repeat the success of 2024.
