FAI Cup First Round
Athlone Town -v- Waterford FC
Friday, 23rd July 2021
Kick-Off: 7.45pm
Referee: Damien MacGraith
Attention turns to the 2021 FAI Cup this weekend, as Waterford FC travel to face Athlone Town on Friday night for their First Round encounter.
Having hit a good run of form since the restart of the league, the Blues will be hoping to add a Cup run to their season in the hope of ending a long wait for FAI Cup glory.
The Blues come into Friday’s game after a 1-0 win over Sligo Rovers last Sunday afternoon with a Cian Kavanagh wonder-strike giving the Blues an excellent three points, as they continue to hunt down Finn Harps in 8th place.
Friday’s opponents come into the game after going down 3-1 against Shelbourne in Tolka Park on Friday night. The First Division club currently sit in 6th place.
The sides last met in competitive action back in 2017 when the Blues won three of their four games against the Midlands club. The Blues last visit to the Athlone Town Stadium saw the then First Division Blues side run out comfortable 6-1 winners.
Managers View: Speaking ahead of Friday’s match against Athlone Town, manager Marc Bircham said:
“Of course I’m happy with how we played last weekend. The last few weeks I have had to bring it back for us to focus on clean sheets. If you can keep clean sheets you’ll move up the table so that was what we have done. I think if we played this game [v Sligo] six weeks ago we might not have even drawn with Sligo, let alone beat them.
“Cian [Kavanagh] did well to get his goal, too. For the last few weeks he’s had his head down and really worked and if you look at the weekend I think he’s done brilliantly. Even taking the goal out of it, he’s up top on his own against two centre halves and he’s done brilliant.
“I know it’s a cliche but we just take each game as it comes. [The FAI Cup] is a great distraction for us. I want to get in a habit of winning and the only way to do that is to win games so we’ll be putting out a strong side.
“We’ll go up there wanting to win and have a bit of a Cup run. We’ll be treating them with the same respect in our preparations as we did with Sligo, but we will be going up there to do a job and get ourselves into the next round of the Cup.”
Team News: Prince Mutswunguma (additional one-match suspension) and Niall O’Keeffe (accumulation of yellow cards) miss out through suspension. Brian Murphy, Matthew Connor, Kyle Ferguson, Daryl Murphy and Oscar Brennan miss out, while Katlego Mashigo returns from injury.
