By Conall Collier
Sligo Rovers will bid to extend an unbeaten sequence to four games when defending Women’s Premier Division (WPD) champions Athlone Town visit the Showgrounds on Saturday, 3pm.
The Bit O’Red kept a cleansheet at Tallaght Stadium last Saturday and were well worth a draw as they made it three successive games unbeaten, but Athlone will pose a huge challenge.
On the injury front, almost half a team of regular starters will be absent again as Paula McGrory, Katie Melly, Amber Hardy, Rachel McGoldrick and Jessica Casey remain on the sideline and Rovers manager Steve Feeney is well aware of the challenge this weekend.
STEVE FEENEY
“Athlone are in great form and look like a formidable team at the moment, with seven wins and draw so far in the league and they are scoring plenty of goals also,” he stated.
“Roisin Molloy has returned to action from injury and when you add her to players like Maddie Gibson, Kelly Brady and quality in other positions, they have a strong panel.
“It will be another big test for us this weekend, but then that’s what we want and we are really looking forward to the game against the reigning champions,” he added.
“We’ll prepare as best we can, just like we did last week and the week before and the target will be to extend our unbeaten sequence.
“We are certainly under no illusions about the task that we face, if we are not on our game then we will be punished.
“However, the girls deserve great credit for the way they have found improvement over the last few weeks, especially the way they executed our game plan at Tallaght Stadium last Saturday.
“If we can improve on that against Athlone, then we will be in with a chance, but it will require total concentration for 90 minutes.
“We have conceded only one goal in our last three games while in the three before that, we conceded 11 goals, that’s a reflection on all the players and we now want to build on that, another clean sheet on Saturday would give us a great chance,” he concluded.
ATHLONE TOWN
Currently, Athlone Town lead the way at the top of the WPD with a point to spare ahead of 2023 champions Shelbourne.
The formbook would certainly favour an unbeaten Athlone Town side that has won seven out of eight WPD games this season with a draw at Tallaght Stadium in mid-March where they finished with 10 players following a red card with about 20 minutes remaining.
There was also a defeat (1-0) in the All-Island Cup away to Glentoran where Athlone finished with nine players following two red cards around the 90th minute mark and despite a red card last weekend after 20 minutes, the Westmeath side carved out an impressive 3-0 victory against Waterford.
LOITV
Kick-off at The Showgrounds is at 3pm and the game is live on LOITV.
Kick-off at The Showgrounds is at 3pm and the game is live on LOITV.