Sheriff YC ready for Cup challenge this weekend

On Friday evening, Sheriff YC play host to Athlone Town at Clontarf Astro in the third round of the Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup and on Wednesday evening the club hosted a media night where Extratime.ie caught up with manager Alan Reilly to get his thoughts on Friday’s big match.

“We are very excited” he said. “It’s a game of big importance and one that everyone in the club is looking forward to, the whole area is looking forward to – especially the players.”

Unlike the visitors on Friday night, Sheriff head into the game on the back of a summer break and when asked Reilly said that he believed the break could help, not hinder, his side in their quest for victory over the First Division side.

“No maybe it could the opposite, I think it was the rest we needed more and that the break was beneficial for them. We’re back four going into five weeks, we had a bit of a run in the Tommy Clements Cup where they all would have got game time. I’d like to think we’d be there abouts come Friday.”

Despite having only played their first league game in the AUL Premier A last Sunday, where they defeated Grange Baldoyle by four goals to nil the Dublin 1 club are no stranger to the FAI Cup, having reached the third round twice in recent season.

In the previous round they defeated high flying UCD 3-1 and Reilly is under no illusions that if his side can overcome Friday’s challenge it would be a huge achievement, but he is also aware Friday’s task against Athlone is another huge game for one of Ireland's most successful junior clubs.

“It would be a massive achievement, if you get a result to then be going in knocking against the big boys in the quarter-final, but we can’t look past Athlone. You wouldn’t be taking Athlone lightly, I think the league form is wrong - I don’t think they should be where they are, they have a wealth of experience and youth in their side.

“I think it’s only a matter of time before they start picking up results and going on a good run. Alan Mathews will have them well drilled and organised, Alan knows what he’s doing, he’s managed in the top flight in this country - it's going to be a big task and test for us on Friday, we’ll have to perform and be on our game to get a result on Friday.”

With a large home crowd expected on Friday, Reilly confirmed that he has a full strength squad to select from and he expects the four Sheriff players (Paul Murphy, Kevin Lynch, Darren Dunne and John Rock) who represented Ireland in the UEFA regions competition to bring a huge influence to the game.

“We have a full strength squad to choose from” he said. “Thank god, we don’t usually have that – your coming out of pre-season you might get some niggles. We get through training tomorrow [Thursday] and we’ve a full squad to choose from.

“The four boys they will [Influence the game], they’ve had a good run winning the regions cup - they’re coming off something that was remarkable from the amateur Ireland set-up. Hopefully collectively they can bring that into the game Friday.”

When asked whether he thought the visiting side would be able to adapt to the tie being played on an AstroTurf pitch he said “I don’t know to be honest with you, I’m sure the [Athlone] players played on one against Dundalk or they’ve trained on it throughout their time as a player. We’ll know come the end of the game on Friday won’t we.”

Whenever Sheriff YC enters a cup game in junior football they enter as heavy favourites and Reilly is fully aware that Athlone being a League of Ireland club deserve to be favourites for Friday’s game.

“Athlone rightly would be favourites, you’re talking about a league of Ireland set up, we’re an amateur side so I don’t think there's any doubt that Athlone would be favourites, but at the same time they’ll want to get in and get a result and progress to the quarter-finals - as we do too we want to test ourselves against a league of Ireland opposition and hopefully it’s good enough on the night.”