He scored his first goal in a competitive match from the penalty spot against Transport in a League of Ireland Shield game on 20 August 1961.

Johnny was a regular member of Rovers' all-conquering side of 1963/64 when the Hoops almost made a clean sweep of the domestic trophies.

[citation needed] Johnny won the first of his six FAI Cup medals with Rovers in 1964 and in the replayed final the following year he scored the winner.

[2] The following year he scored again in Europe in the 4–1 win over Spora Luxembourg and had two great games against FC Bayern Munich where Rovers were seven minutes from putting the eventual winners of the competition.

He was on the mark in Europe again in 1968 against Randers FC but a knee injury he received in March 1969 kept him out of Rovers' record making six-in-a-row FAI Cup Final win.