By Gerard Mulreaney (@gerardmulreaney)
After Finn Harps opened their season last night in a 1-1 draw with Shelbourne, Drogheda United are the last team to kick-off their 2018 campaign. They’ll do so on Sunday when Aaron O’Callaghan’s Athlone Town come to town.
Athlone lost their opening game to Galway United by four goals to one, however they did play very well in patches going forward, and having two weeks to prepare for Drogheda you’d expect Callaghan and his side to have ironed out any defensive frailties.
For Drogheda and their rookie manager Tim Clancy, they can’t wait to get their season up and running, “It’s been a long wait,” the 33-year-old explained on Saturday evening. “Some things have been out of our control so we just have to accept the delay and not use it as any kind of an excuse.”
The preparations have gone well, with some great results, but Clancy knows that counts for nothing come the real thing, “We’ve had a really good pre-season and I can see that the players are already starting to link-up well together in training. We’ve played four Premier Division sides and had some good results to go along with positive performances so hopefully Sunday will follow in that vein.”
“They obviously had a rough time of it against Galway but I’m sure they won’t be the last side to get a drubbing there. No side wants to start the season with back-to-back defeats so I’m expecting a real battle tomorrow."
“Even from the first couple of rounds of results, you can see how competitive the First Division is going to be. United Park isn’t an easy place to go to, I don’t think opposition players enjoy playing here and we need to take full advantage of that.”
Picture Credit: RTE.ie
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