Preview: St Patrick's Athletic vs Longford Town

St Patrick’s Athletic welcome Longford Town to Richmond Park for their 3rd round clash in the FAI Ford Cup on Friday night (kick off 19:45). The two sides last met in August, with Longford Town winning 2-1. Those three points were not enough, however, to stop Longford getting relegated, and subsequently lose the majority of their squad and their manager. Pats, on the other hand, have strengthened their squad and sit second in the eircom Premier Division after a strong start to the season.

Despite Longford’s young side, St Pat’s manager Johnny McDonnell is aware that upsets can and do happen in the FAI Cup. “It’s the start of the cup competition and five matches and five wins could see a team with a trophy and qualification for Europe so we’ll be trying to go as far as we can. We’re playing at home and, no disrespect to Longford, but on home ground we’ve a great chance of making it into the next round. Longford are a revamped young team, they’ve made a good start to the season and they will be eager. With the cup anything can happen, so we will be treating the match with a lot of caution”.

St Pat’s still are without the services of Keith Fahey, David Partridge, John Frost and Michael Keane. Keane, however, has returned back to full training. Stephen Paisley returns to the defence following a groin injury.

In Longford team news, manager Aaron Callaghan welcomes back Neil Gallagher, but Ryan Casey and Shay Kelly are both out injured.

The game kicks off at 19:45pm.