2023 Season, Arrivals and Departures

**Bunny Kelly** · 18/01/2023, 1:25 PM

Originally Posted by Jack B

Cotter was great for us, but at the same time he perfectly fit what we needed at the time at right wing back, which I'd say is definitely his position. He has quite unique attributes in this league in terms of his dribbling and pace/general athleticism from that position and basically offered a completely new dimension to our play. Probably Pats' most effective player maybe outside of Forrester towards the back end of the season.

Can see why he didn't fit Rovers though as while the formation is largely the same they play a much more considered, possession-based style that isn't suited to him. Would be surprised to see him make a big success of things at a club like Barnsley where they could feasibly be back in the Championship soon, as his physical advantages will be lessened over there and he'll have more of a spotlight on the defensive side to his game. Who knows though, silver lining can be that he just comes back to us if so.

Sobowele from Waterford would a great replacement if sticking with wing backs, great for attacking from deep giving pace & energy, unfortunately though only has a marginal more interest in defending than Cotter.

I wasn't particularly a fan of Atakayi or Cotter individually last season but the Pats side was so much better in the second half of the season with the injection of their pace

**Jack B** · 18/01/2023, 1:53 PM

Originally Posted by Bunny Kelly

Sobowele from Waterford would a great replacement if sticking with wing backs, great for attacking from deep giving pace & energy, unfortunately though only has a marginal more interest in defending than Cotter.

I wasn't particularly a fan of Atakayi or Cotter individually last season but the Pats side was so much better in the second half of the season with the injection of their pace

From the small sample size of them beating Pats in the cup I liked the look of quite a few Waterford players but they seem to have done a good job on holding on to most of them. We have a right back on trial that played against Drogheda anyway but I know nothing of him.

Agree on the latter point, Atakayi in particular doesn't look anything special in general play but he's quick and actually has a great knack of popping up in dangerous areas. None of his goals were particularly pretty but he got 5 in something like 10.5 games worth of minutes, so think he'll still be a handy player next season.

**Jd2793** · 18/01/2023, 2:06 PM

sobowale is a lot worse than cotter imo. leaves a lot to be desired in his positioning and defensive stuff. hes a great ball carrier though but again once you need him to deliver the ball hes worse than cotter.

**nigel-harps1954** · 18/01/2023, 2:42 PM

Sobowale was very poor at Harps. Didn't see a huge amount of game time, but was fairly well off the pace and wasn't kept on as we got promoted.

Handy enough in that wing back role for Waterford with pace and power, but lacks that bit of extra quality on the ball that would be needed for a side like Pats.

**patsdad** · 18/01/2023, 3:04 PM

Jake Mulraney confirmed at Pats. He�s an out and out winger so I guess we�re moving away from the wing-back set up. Makes sense as we adopted that to work with Cotter�s strengths and weaknesses.

We had a good second half to the season and I�d expect the starting 11 will be much the same with the exception of Mulraney for Cotter and Kreita for O�Reilly. Quite a few that were just outside the first 11 have moved on (Barrett, King, Coughlan, Owalabi and Bermo) so there�s still a few new faces needed in addition to Lonergan.

**Glen Of Aherlow** · 18/01/2023, 3:21 PM

Originally Posted by patsdad

Jake Mulraney confirmed at Pats. He�s an out and out winger so I guess we�re moving away from the wing-back set up. Makes sense as we adopted that to work with Cotter�s strengths and weaknesses.

We had a good second half to the season and I�d expect the starting 11 will be much the same with the exception of Mulraney for Cotter and Kreita for O�Reilly. Quite a few that were just outside the first 11 have moved on (Barrett, King, Coughlan, Owalabi and Bermo) so there�s still a few new faces needed in addition to Lonergan.

One thing that would worry me about Mulraney is his goalscoring record , which for an attacking player seems poor .

I reckon we could do with another defender coming in and maybe another forward player.

**Jd2793** · 18/01/2023, 3:45 PM

Originally Posted by patsdad

Jake Mulraney confirmed at Pats. He�s an out and out winger so I guess we�re moving away from the wing-back set up. Makes sense as we adopted that to work with Cotter�s strengths and weaknesses.

We had a good second half to the season and I�d expect the starting 11 will be much the same with the exception of Mulraney for Cotter and Kreita for O�Reilly. Quite a few that were just outside the first 11 have moved on (Barrett, King, Coughlan, Owalabi and Bermo) so there�s still a few new faces needed in addition to Lonergan.

where has coughlan gone?

**patsdad** · 18/01/2023, 4:32 PM

Originally Posted by Jd2793

where has coughlan gone?

Dunno if he�s signed anywhere but he wasn�t offered a new contract at Pats. Didn�t really feature in 2022.

**D24Saint** · 18/01/2023, 4:50 PM

Originally Posted by patsdad

Dunno if he�s signed anywhere but he wasn�t offered a new contract at Pats. Didn�t really feature in 2022.

Bit of a fruit cake apparently. He has potential to be a decent player but spent most of last season injured or warming the bench.

**sbgawa** · 18/01/2023, 6:08 PM

Originally Posted by Glen Of Aherlow

One thing that would worry me about Mulraney is his goalscoring record , which for an attacking player seems poor .

I reckon we could do with another defender coming in and maybe another forward player.

It's a fair point but playing at a higher standard is different. when I look at Hoooooobans or burkes scoring rate in the UK compared to loi its a different league

**Longfordian** · 18/01/2023, 6:17 PM

Town have signed Ross Fay from Pats, and Jack Harrington from Dundalk. 19 and 18 respectively. We'll have a very young squad.

**ontheotherhand** · 18/01/2023, 6:30 PM

Cotter looked really exciting when he first joined Rovers. Brought us the pace and energy we lacked. Had a similar impact as he did last season with Pats. Got exposed in his second season though and we have better options now, particularly with Farrugia looking healthy. I wasn't sure he'd ever get a run of games but he looked excellent in the last 20 or so of last season and it was his longest run of games since joining the club.

As said above Cotter is an athlete with a bag of tricks but an occasional liability on and off the field by the sounds of it. I think he would have ended up costing Pats. To get 20k for him is grand. Interesting to hear we rejected a larger bid from Pats though. Can't have happened that often here.

**2 Year Contract** · 18/01/2023, 7:24 PM

Originally Posted by Longfordian

Town have signed Ross Fay from Pats, and Jack Harrington from Dundalk. 19 and 18 respectively. We'll have a very young squad.

Decent player at 19s level, hope he does well in the first division. He was captain of the league winning 19s team but never got a pro contract offer from pats or a first team appearance, making the bench on a number of occasions was as close as he got. He has an eye for goal from centre mid and scored in a good few of the 19s games I was at last season.

**Shearer** · 18/01/2023, 10:47 PM

Originally Posted by Jd2793

where has coughlan gone?

Rumoured to be moving to England, think his partner is English

**outspoken** · 19/01/2023, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by patsdad

Jake Mulraney confirmed at Pats. He�s an out and out winger so I guess we�re moving away from the wing-back set up. Makes sense as we adopted that to work with Cotter�s strengths and weaknesses.

We had a good second half to the season and I�d expect the starting 11 will be much the same with the exception of Mulraney for Cotter and Kreita for O�Reilly. Quite a few that were just outside the first 11 have moved on (Barrett, King, Coughlan, Owalabi and Bermo) so there�s still a few new faces needed in addition to Lonergan.

Where's King gone? Always liked him.

**2 Year Contract** · 19/01/2023, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by outspoken

Where's King gone? Always liked him.

Nowhere yet, rumoured to be going back to scotland

**joey B** · 19/01/2023, 9:04 PM

Emmanuel Adegboyega signs for Drogheda Utd from Dundalk.

**trevy** · 20/01/2023, 7:54 AM

Barry Baggley signs for Waterford on a season long loan from Fleetwood Town. He's a midfielder from Belfast who's been capped at u 21 level for Northern Ireland and has a handful of starts for Fleetwood.

**total hoofball** · 20/01/2023, 12:29 PM

Colm Horgan has signed for Galway

**Bunny Kelly** · 21/01/2023, 10:14 AM

Cork have signed a midfielder that was playing in the top flight in Sweden & Norway last season, I feel like these are the level we should be targetting players from, not the Estonia leagues or in Sligo's case this year the bottom half of the Swedish 2nd tier.

LOI sides maybe below the top sides in Scandinavia, but should be no worse than a bottom half of those leagues.

It often seems like to me as a league we are excited by any foreigner without asking the level they are coming from