St Patrick's Athletic Match Preview

Galway United are back in action at Eamonn Deacy Park on Friday night when the Tribesmen welcome Liam Buckley’s St Patrick’s Athletic side to the west for an intriguing league encounter.

United recorded their first away win of the season in convincing fashion on Saturday evening at the Carlisle Grounds, routing Bray Wanderers in an impressive, attacking performance.

There were many positives to take from the game, including Enda Curran’s hat-trick. Padraic Cunningham’s first league goal for the club and Ryan Connolly’s thunderbolt from over 30 yards. United manager Tommy Dunne told www.galwayunitedfc.ie: “The players are looking forward to the challenge of taking on one of the best footballing sides in the country on Friday night.”

Dunne continued: “After Saturday’s fantastic win against Bray Wanderers, there has been a real buzz and tempo in training this week. All of the lads were pleased with the win and now our attention turns to St Pats.

“We know playing St Patrick’s Athletic will be difficult, but we’re also looking forward to the challenge that it presents. Pats are a great footballing side and they showed all of their strength and quality against Sligo Rovers last week, winning 3-0 in Inchicore.

“So, we’re under no illusions about how tough the game will be. But, we’re at home and with a big crowd behind us and a strong support behind the players, we’re hopeful of securing the right result. We endeavour to win every home match and Friday will be no different. Our approach will be positive.”

As the first series of games comes towards an end, Dunne took time to assess the clubs progress so far in 2015.

“I think we’ve had some difficult games in the first phase but we’ve picked up three crucial wins,” the Dubliner explained.

“We would’ve liked to have more points on the board and I honestly think we’ve deserved them but we are where we are. I feel like we should have nothing to fear within this league, we have to be more ruthless in our play and I think that’s starting to become more evident in recent weeks. We’re working on it.

“The work rate, honesty and effort of the players in the first third of the season gives us plenty of positives to build on heading into the second series of games. I think if we get a bit of luck with injuries, we’ll be even more competitive and hopefully we’ll get more points this time around.

“Right now, our immediate focus is on getting the correct result against St Pat’s and putting a bit of a run together. We want to continue picking up positive results on-front of our supporters at Eamonn Deacy Park.”

TEAM NEWS
Long term injury victims Jason Molloy (broken toe), Andy O’Connell (ankle) and Kilian Cantwell (knee) all remain sidelined for United.

Tommy Dunne will also have to plan without the services of Marc Ludden (knee) and Kevin Garcia (hamstring) who both picked up injuries during the week.

REFEREE
Jim McKell

RECENT FIXTURES
Bray Wanderers 0-5 Galway United
Dundalk 3-0 Galway United
Galway United 3-2 Limerick FC
Galway United 0-1 Sligo Rovers
Galway United 4-2 Cockhill Celtic

GALWAY UNITED GOALSCORERS
Enda Curran – 6
Padraic Cunningham – 4
Gary Shanahan – 3
Jake Keegan – 2
Ryan Connolly – 1
Sam Oji – 1
Andy O’Connell – 1