Tag: city calling stadium

FIRST DIVISION PLAY-OFF MATCH PREVIEW: Longford Town v Cabinteely

Match Preview by Tony Ghee

This Friday night at the City Calling Stadium, the second leg of the Promotion Play-Off between Longford Town and Cabinteely takes place with the game getting underway at 7.45pm.

This tie is delicately poised after last Friday’s goalless stalemate at Stradbrook in which both sides created good chances to win the contest. However, a combination of good goalkeeping, missed one-on-one opportunities, a disallowed Cabinteely goal, and a Longford Town effort that may or may not have crossed the line, all resulted in a clean sheet for both sides.

Longford Town almost took the lead after seven minutes when a Dylan Grimes corner was cleared off the Cabinteely line, an incident that sparked a debate as to whether the Town should have been awarded a goal.

Aaron Dobbs for Longford and Keith Dalton for Cabinteely both missed one-on-one chances with keepers McGuinness and Steacy coming out on top, while Paul Fox had a Cabinteely goal ruled out for offside.

Cabinteely had to play out the closing stages with ten players after former Longford defender, Kevin Knight, was dismissed for a poorly timed challenge on Town Centre-half, Mick McDonnell.

Both sides will be confident of success with Longford possibly having a very slight edge backed by an expectant big home following, however, Cabinteely have won two and drawn two of this season’s four meetings between the sides, including a one-nil victory at the City Calling Stadium back in May.

The potent threat of Kieran Marty Waters and the Division’s top scorer, Joe Manley, will give the visitors belief of scoring goals on the night and both will require close marshalling by the home defence.

On the plus side for Longford Town is the fact that they secured last week’s draw without the suspended Shane Elworthy and the ill Dean Byrne, while Aodh Dervin, Peter Hopkins, and Karl Chambers were all deemed unfit to start and had to settle for places on the bench. All of these players are now available to start the second leg with the only player out being the suspended left-back, Anto Breslin.

Action from last week’s scoreless draw v Cabinteely in the first leg of the playoff.

The winner of the match will have first leg home advantage against Drogheda United in the next round of the play-offs beginning Friday, October 18th.