St.Patrick’s Athletic v Derry City (Premier Division)

Two of the country’s most inform sides meet at Richmond Park on Friday night and the stakes couldn’t be higher with St.Pat’s chasing a European finish and Derry City still in the hunt for the title.

Since crashing out of Europe, St.Pat’s have won five in a row while Derry City have won six on the spin in all comps if you include their thrilling extra time triumph over League champions and title rivals Shamrock Rovers in the FAi Cup a few weeks ago.

Both of these teams endured periods in the season where efficiency in front of goal was a problem but it’s really clicked in the final third for both sides in recent weeks with Pats scoring at lease two or more goals in four of their last five games while Derry City have only failed to score once in their last seventeen domestic matches.

Derry City’s current run of form is all the more impressive when you factor in that they haven’t lost a game domestically since May, a run of form that has closed the gap on Shamrock Rovers to just five points with six games remaining. While that means the Hoops are still very much in the driving seat, this season marks a real step forward for City who finished 24 points off the pace last term.

Manager Ruaidhri Higgins always stated from the get go this season would be about closing that gap and building a project that would see big success come Derry’s way in years to come, so this may be the fixture that ends their faint title hopes for this season.

St.Pat’s demonstrated their ability to set up differently and defend deeply when they visited the Brandywell in May. The Dubliners set up with the sole intention of not losing the game and managed to achieve that with a 0-0 draw despite Derry dominating proceedings. With Pats are at home in this one, they’ll be expected to play a lot more on the front foot but they can certainly take some learnings from that previous encounter to try and slow down this rapid Derry City attack.

However, with Michael Duffy now back to full fitness and Jamie McGonigle finally finding his scoring boots again in the win over Shamrock Rovers, it’s difficult to see Pats keeping another clean sheet this time around. Given the attacking quality on both sides and the high confidence levels both teams are enjoying at present, we should see some goals here.

Athlone Town v Longford Town (Division 1)

The game known as “El Clasico” takes place on Friday night as Midland rivals Athlone and Longford meet for the final time this season. Longford Town had enjoyed a twenty match unbeaten spell spanning almost a decade over their near neighbors until a shock 3-1 win for Athlone in Longford just a few months ago.

That result drew fierce criticism for the Longford Town management and players from the supporters with some even calling for manager Gary Cronin to resign, so you can see exactly what this fixture means.

In credit to Cronin and his players, they’ve responded brilliantly to that result and the critics with Longford Town since securing their place in the play-offs thanks to a six game unbeaten spell. Having gone three weeks without a game, Saturday’s 1-1 draw at home to Treaty United should have helped to blow away and cobwebs with Fridays visit to Athlone marking out the start of a busy period for Longford who host Waterford United on Monday night before another away game later in the week.

Meanwhile, Athlone Town have won back to back games for the first time all season to pull themselves off the foot of the division and the Westmeath men have actually won three of their last four games so they’ll fancy their chances of upsetting the apple cart again here.

However, 5-1 and 6-1 defeats against higher calibre opposition immediately after their win against Longford serve as a reminder of Athlone Town’s current standing in the League of Ireland food chain and there’s no way there will be any complacency in the Longford ranks after what happened last time.

Waterford FC v Cobh Ramblers (Division 1)

The buzz around Waterford FC at the moment is absolutely incredible. New owner Andy Pilley, who is also the chairman of Fleetwood Town, has brought in a number of new measures at the RSC to improve the fan experience on match day, such as a marquee serving alcohol, pre match DJs, improved food offerings and much more, and the people of Waterford are responding by getting out in force and supporting their side.

Of course, the performance of the team is also a big factor with the Blues reaching the FAI Cup semi-final where they’ll have a very winnable home tie at home to Damien Duff’s Shelbourne while the push for promotion is very much still on. Sadly, this has all come too late in the season for automatic promotion to be a possibility but the way Waterford are playing at the moment combined with the feel good factor surrounding the club means the Blues are many people’s favourites to win the end of season promotion play-offs.

Ex-Spurs and Watford youngster, Phoenix Patterson is simply unplayable at present and his tally of 13 goals and 9 assists in 27 league games says it all. Patterson is undoubtedly the best player in the division and if he’s on a going day he can win a game on his own. Patterson put in another stellar performance during last Sunday’s 3-0 walk in the park win over Bray Wanderers.

A 7 match winless streak for Cobh Ramblers (5 defeats in that time) has seen the County Cork club fall to to foot of the table and it’s hard to argue that’s where they don’t deserve to be given their woeful 2022 campaign. There was some sort of light relief for them a few weeks ago as the club got their hands on some minor silverware in the form of the Munster Senior Cup, beating a weakened Cork City side but it’s likely that’s as good as it’s going to get for the foreseeable at Cobh Ramblers.

Shane Keegan has a massive rebuilding job on his hands and it’s going to take him a number of seasons to get it right. His only goal going into this game will be to avoid a pasting and that will take a bit of doing given the form of Waterford’s top players at present.

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 Wexford FC v Bray Wanderers (Division 1)

Another week, another heavy defeat and another comical post match interview from Pat Devlin. That’s been the story of Bray Wanderers season as the club’s Director of Football/defacto manager Devlin questioned why the club were not receiving more support following a 3-0 pumping at home to Waterford last Sunday.

That was Bray’s 14th loss of the season, they’ve won just 6 times and have played among one of the worst brands of football in the country, it’s really not that difficult to work out why people aren’t flocking to the Carlisle Grounds at the moment.

As for Wexford, it’s been a frustrating few weeks for Ian Ryan’s side in what otherwise has been a very enjoyable season. A 6 game winless streak in the league has come at the wrong time with Treaty United all but out of sight now in the race for the divisions final play-off place.

It’s been Wexford’s inability to patch up a leaky back four that has ultimately cost them with very few clean sheets to boast throughout the campaign. However, they are the league’s joint fourth top goal scorers and that should be enough to see them over the line against a Bray side who clocked off months ago.

With the play-off race not yet mathematically decided, Ian Ryan is sure to keep his players going until the very end of the campaign and given they have drawn all three H2H’s with Bray this season, they’ll want to finally get that monkey off their back.

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