Athlone

[ForzaForth]

Very comfortable win for Wexford in Ferrycarrig tonight as Athlone crumbled in the second half to enable Wexford to score more or less at will in the final third of the game. Wexford's manager Damian Locke went with an attack-minded formation with Kealan, Liam, AJ, Sean Kelly, Sean Hurley, Mark, Mikey, Crokey, Dean and Shane and Aaron up front. Wexford had a great chance early on when, on seven minutes, Aaron Dobbs put an effort close in over the bar when he connected with a good cross by Sean Hurley. But it was otherwise a fairly untidy first fifteen minutes or so by both sides. On 18 minutes, Dobbs went down in Athlone’s penalty box but nothing was given. Crokey then headed over from a Wexford corner and Dobbs did the same thing on 35 minutes. Wexford were creating chances when they could get any decent ball into the Athlone defence. It eventually paid dividends on 39 minutes when the ball broke behind the Athlone defenders and Dobbs ran onto it to bury a good shot past the helpless Fogarty in the Athlone goal for 1-0 to Wexford. It remained 1-0 at half-time and Athlone hadn’t really threatened Wexford’s goal.

[ForzaForth]

Second half continued in a fairly low-key fashion until 52 minutes, when Dobbs used his strength to bundle over an Athlone defender. As the ref. waved play on, Dobbs crossed low for Shane Barnes to finish comfortably and Wexford looked home and dry at 2-0. Athlone protested strongly at the awarding of this goal and Wexford dominated hugely from then on. It became 3-0 on the hour mark when Shane Barnes volleyed nicely into the bottom right corner after the ball dropped to him just inside the Athlone box. After a rare Athlone effort on the Wexford goal which was pulled well wide, Barnes scored his hat-trick goal and 4-0 when good movement by Wexford allowed him a run free at goal down Athlone’s left wing. Just before this fourth goal Owen McCormack had replaced a limping AJ Lehane for Wexford. With 15 minutes to go, Ryan Nolan and Dean George came on as subs for Wexford and Dean George had to wait only two minutes before his low shot beat Fogarty a bit too easily for 5-0. Aaron Dobbs was now running riotup front for Wexford and he won a peno which he also dispatched for 6-0. Dean George has probably the best skill-level in the club and some very neat control enabled him to beat Fogarty for his second and 7-0 to Wexford. Best for Wexford were AJ Lehane, who has come on in leaps and bounds as a player, with Sean Kelly looking very comfortable beside him, whilst Crokey dominated midfield. However, the biggest gap between the teams was up front, where Barnes, Dobbs and Slater posed by far the greater threat for Wexford than anything offered by Athlone. 7-0 at full-time with about 150 at the game.