Preview: Wexford Youths vs Kildare County

On Friday the 21st of March at 8.00pm, Wexford Youths will entertain Kildare County at Ferrcarrig Park. Both have yet to put points on the board, but something will have to change, as both managers will see this as the ideal opportunity to get their first wins of the season. Even though we are only into week three of the season, this can be seen as a bottom of the table clash as the two sides are already favourites to be battling for relegation.

In last week’s fixture, Kildare went down 3-1 to Shelbourne at Station Road. County took the lead through Barry Slattery, but imploded within an 18 minute period when they let Shels score three goals, much to the disgust of manager John Ryan. This was the Thoroughbreds first game of the season as their game with Athlone Town was postponed.

Wexford on the other hand had a tricky away tie at Limerick 37. These newly formed sides battled it out and it looked like it was going to end in a draw, until Wexford conceded two late penalties, both for handball. Wexford themselves got a penalty, but last years top scorer Conor Sinnott missed and the Youths lost 2-0, their second consecutive defeat.

The recent record shows Kildare have won two and drawn two against Wexford. Mick Wallace will therefore want the victory as his Youths have never beaten Kildare, a record he won’t want to continue.

Wexford will be able to call upon striker Danny Furlong and midfielder Marty Kelly for this game after they served their suspensions in last weeks games. Apart from that Wallace should be able to choose from a full strength squad and he will hope that player’s confidence hasn’t dropped after recent results.

Kildare on the other hand have a bit of an injury list at the moment. Austin O’Neill and Stephen Cooling should be out for another couple of weeks, but John Ryan could be to call upon the services of Michael Roche, depending on a late fitness test. However defender Willie Tyrell will miss out on the game as he got a straight red card in his debut against Shelbourne. John Ryan gave five players their debuts last week and Wexford will hope to capitalise on the lack match day experience within the Kildare camp. Kildare have a lot of former Kilkenny City players within the squad. Willie Tyrell and Michael Comerford both signed when Kilkenny City past away. John Brophy, the former striker now defender signed from Shelbourne in the summer, but was once on loan with Kilkenny and Paul Donnelly made the move to Kildare from the cats two seasons ago.

Wallace will hope that striker Paul Murphy will come back to form after a poor performance by his standards last week and also he will hope last seasons top-scorer Conor Sinnott forgets about last weeks penalty miss and hits the ground running on Friday, as goals have been Wexford’s main problem since they entered the league.

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The key battle will be who wins the midfield tussle between Paul Malone and Kildare’s Barry Slattery. Kildare will look to him for inspiration, crosses and goals, while Wexford will want the always busy Malone to get stuck in and keep the midfield maestro quiet. Whoever comes out on top, could just win it for their team.

The bookies are finding it difficult to call this game with Wexford at 11/8, Kildare at 13/8 and the draw at 11/5.