That man was former Coventry City and Wigan Athletic scouser Paul Cook. He immediately got the team playing an attractive brand of passing football and despite all the turmoil steered the side to a respectable 6th place in the 12 team league. The club would build on this the following year by finishing in fourth position and thereby qualifying Rovers for Europe for the first time in 12 years. At the end of that season Rovers sold right-back Seamus Coleman to English Premiership side Everton for £60,000. Coleman made his debut under Sean Connor and the Killybegs man quickly established himself as one of the most exciting players in the league thanks to his quality dribbling skills up the right wing. Coleman has since established himself as a regular in the first-team at Everton. He has gone on to win caps for the Ireland national team and was nominated for the PFA Young Player of the year in 2011. The European campaign proved to be a disappointment, however, with Rovers going out to Albanian side KS Vllaznia Shkodër 3–2 on aggregate in their first game. Despite the club failing to compete as high up the league as the previous year, eventually finishing 6th, the club performed much better in the cup and knocked out Derry City, Cork City and Bohs before then beating Waterford 1–0 in the semi final at the Showgrounds to book their place in the first FAI Cup final for 15 years courtesy of Matthew Blinkhorn's header. The final was played at Tallaght Stadium against big spending new First Division side Sporting Fingal and despite Eoin Doyle giving Rovers the lead early in the second half, Fingal came back with two late goals.