League Preview: Longford Town - v - St. Patrick's Athletic

LONGFORD TOWN

Last week Longford Town kicked-off their league campaign with a convincing 2-0 win over new boys Wexford Youths at Ferrycarrig Park with goals coming from Kevin O’Connor and Josh O’Hanlon.

Town boss Tony Cousins will now hope that his squad will be able to carry that momentum into Friday night when they welcome St. Patrick’s Athletic to the City Calling Stadium for the first home game of the season.

O’Hanlon made the perfect start to life back at the Town when his late strike sealed the three points against Wexford. The Bournemouth loanee is likely to start up front again alongside David O’Sullivan who will be looking to open his own tally this season after notching seven goals in 2015.

Rhys Gorman is currently out for three months with an ankle injury, while Cousins will also have to make-do without Don Cowan, Peter McGlynn and Lee Duffy who are also sidelined.

ST. PATRICK’S ATHLETIC

Following their disappointing 3-1 home defeat to Galway United on the opening night, Liam Buckley will be looking for his side to bounce back and pick up their first points of the season when they visit the City Calling Stadium.

Speaking on their game with Longford to stpatsfc.com, Buckley was fully aware of the difficult challenge Cousins’ side pose. ‘‘Longford on Friday will be a tough game for us as they got a good result last week against Wexford,” said Saints boss Buckley.

“Tony (Cousins) has improved his squad on last year and still has many of his key players there so we know it’ll be a tough game.

“Last week was disappointing for everyone, so we'll be looking to get our performance levels right and if we do that, we've a chance of coming away with the points.’’

Saints stopper Brendan Clarke made his 170th appearance for the club last week at Galway but it proved to be a game to forget and he is expecting a big response from the players.

‘‘Last week's game was very disappointing for us all at the club,” said Clarke to stpatsfc.com, “but come Saturday morning, the focus of all the players was putting things right on the pitch and looking ahead to this game on Friday against Longford.’’

‘‘We have all our games on video so we looked at the analysis that Liam and the backroom team put together and have taken that onboard during the week in training as we worked on a few things.

“We know that it's going to be tough against Longford; I know some of their squad well and we won't have it easy there, but the aim will be to improve on last week and get a result.’’

Conor O’Malley, Jamie McGrath, Lee Desmond and Jack Bayly are all ruled out of the tie through injury.

Referee: Jim McKell

MATCH STATS

In their three encounters last season, the Saints came out 3-0 winners on two occasions while in their first meeting of 2015, they played out a highly entertaining 2-2 draw at the City Calling Stadium.  St. Pat’s fought from two goals down to salvage a point despite the first-half dismissal of Ian Bermingham.

The two sides have met a total of 31 times with the Saints edging the head-to-head record with twelve wins to Longford’s ten.

Longford’s last victory over the Inchicore side came way back in 2007 when they overturned a Mark Quigley goal to run out 2-1 winners.

BETTING

Longford Town 11/4; Draw 12/5; St Patrick’s Athletic 19/20.

PREDICTION

Longford Town 1-2 St Patrick’s Athletic

Longford Town

Injured: Rhys Gorman, Don Cowan, Peter McGlynn, Lee Duffy

Doubtful: None.

Suspended: None.

St. Patrick’s Athletic

Injured: Conor O’Malley, Jamie McGrath, Lee Desmond, Jack Bayly

Doubtful: None.

Suspended: None.