Football: Swifts Irish Cup hero completes Shamrock Rovers move

Dungannon Swifts forward John McGovern has completed a move to League of Ireland giants Shamrock Rovers for an undisclosed fee.

The 22-year-old from Newry, who scored for the Swifts in their historic Irish Cup Final win over Cliftonville earlier this month, has signed a deal at the Tallaght Stadium after a superb season with Rodney McAree's side.

The former Northern Ireland Under-21 international hit 20 goals to help Dungannon to a fourth-placed finish in the Sports Direct Irish Premiership and the aforementioned Irish Cup victory.

"We were up quite a lot to watch John," said Rovers boss Stephen Bradley.

"We tried quite a bit over the last year to get him, but it wasn’t possible. John was at University and Dungannon weren’t ready to sell at that moment in time. So, it was a case of continuing to monitor John and thankfully we’ve got him in now.

"We could have moved in on other players in the previous window, but we wanted to wait on John as he was someone we’d monitored for quite some time. He fits the group, has a good age profile and we really like what he’s about. So we waited and now we've got it done.”

"John isn’t just an out and out goalscorer. If you watch him, he’s got a bit of everything, he’s someone we really like and he’s a really good person and we can’t wait to get working with him,” Bradley added.

“He has a couple of weeks off after a long Irish League season, then he’ll be in with the group and can’t wait to get going.”

McGovern began his career as a 16-year-old with hometown club Newry City AFC, scoring 23 goals in 110 games, before making the move to Stangmore Park at the beginning of the 2024/25 season.

He also picked up a Tailteann Cup winners' medal with Down GAA last year and now makes the move to the full-time game at Shamrock Rovers, under the tutelage of Bradley, who led the Hoops to four successive League of Ireland titles.