Drogs wary of banana skin tie in Athlone
AFTER facing four of their promotion rivals in as many weeks, with moderate success, Drogheda United will be seeking a decisive victory away to rock-bottom Athlone Town on Friday (7.45pm).
The rails haven’t exactly come off the Boynesiders’ league challenge in recent weeks, but points have been harder to come by as shown by their defeat in Ballybofey last week and the one-time leaders now find themselves back in third place following Monday night’s Finn Harps v Galway back match.
That being the case, a trip to crisis club Athlone Town, followed by a home game against second-bottom Wexford, should see Drogheda restore second spot behind UCD as some of the other leading teams face each other.
Athlone lost their opening game of the season 6-0 in United Park and fared even worse away to Shelbourne and Wexford, while their manager Aaron Callaghan resigned last week shortly before being handed a six-month ban from football for breaching conditions of a touchline suspension. He has indicated he will appeal.
Against that backdrop - coach Terry Butler has stepped in as manager until further notice - Athlone had no physio for a recent home game against Shelbourne, but they did hold out until the 85th in that match and weren’t overawed when going down 3-0 to Galway United last Friday.
Drogs manager Tim Clancy is treating the game as a potential banana skin.
‘We know that Aaron has left and it might give them a lift,’ he began, speaking on Monday afternoon.
‘There could be a big change in personnel and it’s difficult to get a sense of what team we’ll be up against, but we’ll have to treat it the same way as every other game, be professional and make sure we get the win.
‘We’ll be going fully focused on getting a result and not thinking about them too much.
‘It’s difficult for whoever goes in there [to the Athlone job]. It seems to be a club that can’t get things right and there’s upheaval every so often, but it would be good for the league if Athlone could get back, be strong again and be stable.’
Looking back at the 2-1 defeat by Finn Harps last Friday night, Clancy wasn’t too downhearted about Drogheda’s performance as a whole and he felt there were positives to take into this week’s game.
‘I thought we were excellent in the first half and deserved our lead at half-time. Lee Duffy hit the bar as well and near the end of the half Chris Lyons was through and we felt he was a couple of yards onside, but the flag went up. These are big decisions.
‘We felt we were comfortable at that stage, but they tweaked things, changed formation and brought on Paddy McCourt, who’s a really good, talented player.
‘I’m very disappointed with the result, which has tightened up the league a bit, and we weren’t the best in the second half, but you are going to have games like that and in tight games like Finn Harps you know you have to deal with the storm that’s going to come.
‘We didn’t get close enough to Paddy, probably, but the players are performing really, really well this season and you can’t fault them - it’s certainly not down to a lack of effort or commitment.’
Lloyd Buckley is the only possible injury absentee for Friday - he is already back in training - and so with no suspensions Clancy has virtually a full squad to pick from.
After naming the same XI in the last three league games it will be interesting to see if the manager decides to freshen things up a bit, with Gareth McCaffrey, Luke Gallagher and Kealan Dillon all patiently waiting for an opportunity to start.
Meanwhile, Drogheda have been drawn at home to Leinster Senior League champions Bluebell United or Cherry Orchard in the next round of the Leinster Senior Cup.