Athlone Town 0 - 3 Galway United

[atfconline]

Galway United went top of the Division tonight after beating Athlone Town 3-0 in St. Mel's Park.

Another defensive blunder let Galway open the scoring in the 11th minute, with Mark Herrick eventually rolling the ball into the back of the Town net. As the half went on however, both teams had a number of chances, with Warren Parkes and Gary Devine both being just off the mark for Athlone. It was Galway though that scored with a fine shot from John Brennan to the top left hand corner of the net just before the break.

Athlone went in at half time two down, but after they battled back against Waterford the previous week, there seemed to be some hope that they may be able to rescue it. That never materilaised however, with neither team really sparkling in the second half. Athlone did have one or two chances, with Gary Devine hitting the upright. Any chance of a come back was killed off though when substitute Barry Moran got Galway's third mid way through the half, much to the delight of the vocal travelling support. Galway had the ball in the net for the fourth time just before the final whistle, but is was disallowed for an infringement in the box.

Athlone performed well on the evening, but Galway just performed that little bit better. One worrying thing is though that Athlone have now conceeded three goals four times this season. Something will really need to done there, as there wasn't much between the teams in terms of performance.

As next weekend is FAI Cup quarter finals weekend, Athlone have no league action is to look forward to. To fill the gap, Athlone have organised a friendly against Longford Town. Kickoff is at 7:30 next Friday 6th September in Flancare Park, Longford.

[Oh No]

I don't agree that Athlone performed well. We are far far more capable than that. We were bullied by a much more physical Galway and were outclassed throughout. We have a mental block and need to break it.

Tactically too we threw it. When losing 2-0 I don't think that taking off a good winger in Alan Clarke to put on another defender was very clever. Bad move.

[atfconline]

obviously we could do better, but no way were we outclassed. The first half was very level. We had a good number of chances that either went just wide or just over, Kelly hit a few overhit passes into the box. If they had been more accurate Devine might have got something. I'd agree that taking off Clarke was a strange one. I was down the right side and he made plenty of good runs down, running straight past the Galway players no bother.

Other results haven't really gone our way tonight either. Waterford, Harps and Kilkenny all won, so now only Kildare and Monaghan are below us. As well as that, Aertel says the Under-21's were beaten 4-0 in Drogheda.

As for the new programme, well done on the new look, plenty in it too. The one little thing I don't like about it is the page on Sky. Sky are big enough to promote their own games, and for the official programme of an eL club to be promoting a league that is killing our own league, and it's clubs, is just plain stupid.

[JC_GUFC]

that piece on a SKY game in each weekend's programmes was bizarre, surely it would have been better previewing Limerick v Dundalk on Sunday rather than Chelsea v Arsenal.

As for the match we did deserve the win but 3-0 flattered us. You had some good possession and Stephen Kelly was playing the ball around well but you just weren't able to get anything clear cut and the closest you came to scoring was when Robbie Forde dropped a cross and the shot was cleared off the line.

You were clearly missing Conor Frawley as we caused you quite a few problems from corners in the 1st half.

For us 3-0 was a brilliant result, especially as we rarely seem to win in Mel's and I don't think many other teams will go there and get a better result!

Best of luck for the rest of the season (except for the return match!) and hopefully you can do us some favours by beating other teams in Mel's!

CU
JC

[Oh No]

Fair dues to ye Galway fans. Ye certainly livened up the occasion.

Ye did great for the community games teams too at half time.

I hope we get something to sing about soon.