End of Season Report Card: Athlone Town

Team: Athlone Town

Head Coach: Adrian Carberry

Top Scorer: Ronan Manning (8 league, 1 FAI Cup)

Stadium: Athlone Town Stadium, Lissywoolen.

Highest Attendance: 261 (Cabinteely February 21^st)

Lowest Attendance: 0

Star Player: Ronan Manning

Questions of consistency will remain but whether leading the line or playing as a 10, Manning stood out as a touch of class at many stages for Athlone.

He scored almost 40% of the midlanders league goals (8/21) and assisted five more, playing a key role in either the 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 employed by the town throughout the season.

One of the standout aspects of his game is his ability to take the ball in tight areas on the half turn and carry the ball 15 or 20 yards under pressure, often resulting in a vital free kick for a side playing on the counter with a smaller chunk of possession.

This technical ability will only become more apparent when Athlone’s progressive passing develops further and he’s able to take up positions between the lines instead of having to play the role of transition link man.

Holding onto to the players and media player of the year will be a top priority as Athlone look to build on a better showing in 2020 than their final league position would suggest.

Best Young Player: Adam Lennon

Adrian Carberry has spoken at length throughout the season of giving youth a chance and having a pathway for youngsters from Westmeath, Offaly, Roscommon and further afield to get experience in the League Of Ireland.

True to his word Athlone started the majority of games since the covid enforced break with three U19’s. They’ve repaid their manager in spades by taking that opportunity with both hands.

Jack Reynolds, Tumelo Tlou and the aforementioned Adam Lennon who has been an industrious fixture on the right wing. Lennon bagged two goals and three assists during the shortened campaign but was most impressive in big moments for Adrian Carberry’s side.

The Clara player is always available to receive a pass, looking to take on his direct opposition and put in a ball at the earliest opportunity. The quality and variance of that delivery is something he’ll be working on in the close season but he has every chance of making an impact in the First Division and beyond if continuing on his current trajectory. 

With a more fixed presence in the area waiting on his deliveries that assist tally could have been much greater and is an area that Athlone could look to address with a more traditional number nine.

Best New Signing:  Taner Dogan

If this was a most improved section it would have to go to Tumelo Tlou, but the American loanee from Dundalk was probably Athlone’s most consistent if unspectacular performer.

I say unspectacular in probably the most complimentary context it’ll ever be used. Watching the former Harvard University player go quietly about his business among what amounted to organised chaos at some stages of the season was very impressive.

It became routine for him to cover a huge distance week on week in getting through an enormous workload in the Athlone engine room. His athleticism was only let down on occasion by a lack of composure in tight areas when the pressure really came on from the teams at the top end of the first division, but he arrived in Westmeath looking very raw and his technique obviously developed over the course of the season and he’ll now return to Dundalk all the better for the experience and potentially set for another loan move to a premier division side next season.

Dogan is not going to be a Chris Shields type breaker and playmaker hybrid but he can be a good complimentary midfielder who does all of the dirty work and shuffles box to box in the modern system.

What we expected they would do:

We expected them to struggle as they duly did in the SSE Airtricity First Division with lots of new signings and plenty of young players on the books for 2020.

They had a number of players who had little to no experience of First Division football and it was predicted that another year lingering at the foot of the league was in store and that turned out to be pretty accutrate from Paul Corcoran.

What they actually did:

SSE Airtricity League First Division

The league campaign was a slow burner in Lissywoolen. It took 12 games and almost seven months to remove the duck egg from the win column. That victory came against Cobh Ramblers (2-1) who were in the promotion playoff hunt at the time. 

Buoyed by that win, Athlone would again win seven days later against Wexford (1-0) and remarkably, away to eventual champions Drogheda (2-0) before the league season finished. That win meant Carberry’s team were unbeaten against Drogs this year following a highly entertaining 3-3 draw in August.

Their other league points came in two score draws against Galway United and Cabinteely.

One area of worry for locals despite some improved league form this season will be their dismal record in the midlands derby. It’s now 7 years since their last victory over rivals Longford, a 1-0 win in 2013.

In that time, they’ve shipped 56 goals in 18 meetings averaging at 3.1 goals per game. You don’t win too many derby fixtures needing to score four.

FAI Cup

A glittering performance from start to finish against Shelbourne was the highlight of Athlone’s season. It also led their biggest blip under the brightest lights. The record 11-0 semi-final loss to eventual winners Dundalk however, shouldn’t be the defining moment of this cup run (I’m calling it a run despite the midlanders only needing to win two games to make the semi-finals).

Beating Wexford in the second round was the catalyst for their entire season. Coming from a 2-0 deficit after 20 minutes to level things midway through the second half, only to fail behind again and require a bailout from club captain Scott Delaney to force extra-time. Goals from Lee Duffy and Adam Lennon would guide Carberry’s charges into the quarter-finals and set up that now infamous Dean George hat-trick and subsequent 4-1 win over Ian Morris’ side.

It’s the initial win over the South East side though that personified Athlone’s season perfectly in the space of 120 minutes. The excellent, the amateur and the bizarre all wrapped into one club. It’s that reason that makes them such a wonderful team to following over the course of the season. I had no idea what I was going to witness week to week but it kept drawing me in for more. 

What they need to improve on for next year:

Without a shadow of a doubt Athlone should be looking to address their defensive frailty.

They finished the campaign with the country’s worst defence, conceding 43 times in an 18 game season is paltry at any level. More worrisome was the number of individual errors.

It was hard to pinpoint if it was definitively a concentration issue or whether players were trying to do too much too soon in adapting to a more expansive game plan from the back, but it is an area of concern going forward.

Aaron Myles only had two clean sheets but much of that doesn’t rest on his shoulders. A ball playing centre half or a vocal organiser would be an optimal way to plug that leak going into next season.

This issue is already being addressed with the signing of the experience Michael Schlingermann to provide some much needed competition between the sticks at Lissywoolen.