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Match Preview: Wexford FC v Longford Town FC

Thu Apr 4th 2019

Match Preview by James Donnelly

Wexford FC v Longford Town FC
SSE Airtricity League First Division
Friday 5^th April 2019
Ferrycarrig Park | Kick-off 7.45pm

Longford Town make the long trip down to Wexford on Friday night, just three days after travelling to Derry City and bowing out of the EA Sports Cup, and just six days after a fantastic 2-0 win at home to Shelbourne in the league.

De Town go into the game unbeaten in the league and having only conceded one goal so far. Wexford haven’t had the best of starts to the league campaign but have shown great improvement in recent weeks narrowly losing out to Drogheda United through an injury time winner last week and then defeating Bray 2-0 the week before.

Neale Fenn’s side should be confident ahead of the encounter in the sunny south east with the Red and Black emerging victorious in 6 out 7 past league games between the two sides.

There are no injury concerns for Longford and Carlton Ubaezuonu has resumed training with the team after his injury and should be match fit within a number of weeks.

Longford Town FC Player Tristan Noack-Hofmann pictured during last years 2-0 over Wexford FC at Ferrycarrig Park. Pic: Ken Keenan

Wexford have the services of Danny Furlong to rely on this season and will no doubt be looking to their talisman to get them up and running. Chris Kenny is out injured for Brian O’Sullivan’s side and Sean Callan is out through suspension.

Neale Fenn spoke to LTFC.ie this week ahead of the game. “We’ve always found it difficult to go down there, the couple of times I’ve been down there, it’s been a dry pitch, and it’s been very slow, you know, we know what we’ve got to do. Wexford have been on a decent run the last couple of games and even though they lost to Drogheda, it was in the last minute, so they’ve improved but you know, we’re not scared, we’re gonna go down there full of confidence.”

Kick off at Ferrcarrig Park is at 7.45pm on Friday.

C’mon De Town!

Check out the highlights of last year’s 2-0 win away to Wexford by clicking the link below:

Wexford FC v Longford Town

Match Preview: Cabinteely FC v Longford Town FC

Thu Mar 7th 2019

Match Preview | Cabinteely v Longford Town

by Andrew Dempsey

Longford Town make their first trip to the capital in the 2019 SSE Airtricity League First Division campaign for a mouth-watering clash against Cabinteely at Stradbrook Road on Friday night. (Kick-off is at 7.45pm)

Fresh off the back of three consecutive clean sheets and two wins on the spin, Neale Fenn gets his charges ready for a difficult challenge against Pat Devlin’s outfit who themselves have won their last two outings.

Longford began their season with a tight nil-nil draw away to Limerick at Markets Field before producing a stirring second half performance against Drogheda United on Saturday evening with three goals going unanswered in a three-nil win over Tim Clancy’s side.

Cabo on the other hand have surprised many with their performances thus far with Pat Devlin’s side impressing for the opening hour against East Coast rivals Bray Wanderers before falling away late on.

However, Cabo’s big result was against red-hot title favourites Shelbourne when they stunned the Reds in a barnstorming 3-2 clash at Tolka Park. Rob Manley, brother of Town defender Joe Manley impressed along with Marty Waters who is a major threat as all Longford fans know all too well of.

Tristan Noack-Hofmann in action against Cabinteely’s Kieran Marty Waters during one of last seasons encounters at Stradbrook, Pic: Ken Keenan

Most recently, Longford ran out one goal winners over Ulster Senior League outfit Cockhill Celtic in the EA Sports Cup with new signing Adam Evans scoring the winner early on against the Donegal junior side.

On Longford’s last visit to Stradbrook, De Town were edged out in a one-nil defeat to the South Dubliners with new Town signing Kevin Knight scoring the winner for his former employers.

However, Longford do have a pretty good record against Cabo under Neale Fenn with four wins out of five since the Londoner came into the Longford Town hot-seat in late-June 2017.

In terms of team news for Longford Town, Carlton Ubaezuonu misses out through injury but apart from that, Neale Fenn should have a fully fit squad to choose from at the south Dublin venue.

Match Report: Cork City FC 1-3 Longford Town FC

Sat Feb 2nd 2019

Match Report by James Donnelly

Longford Town sealed their first victory of the year with an impressive 3-1 win over Premier Division maestros Cork City at the Lotamore grounds today.

An own goal and goals from Paul O’Conor and Adam Evans saw the Red and Black take the win home following the ‘home’ sides opener.

Both teams started the game slowly with Cork having the better of the opportunities in the opening 20 minutes. Goalkeeper Jack Menton was forced to pull off a couple of great saves early. Aaron Dobbs held up the ball well for Longford and played a central role in the attacks for De Town.

Cork looked the more likely to score first and they did on 23 minutes when Sean McLoughlin headed past Menton from a corner after he wasn’t picked up at the back post.

Credit to Longford, they battled back and immediately began to press John Caulfield’s side. Karl Chambers and Shane Elworthy linked up well on the right hand side and caused problems for Cork throughout the first half.

It wasn’t long before we got the equalizer. A stroke of luck for us and misfortune for Cork, saw a backpass bobble in front of McNulty in goal and go straight under his legs and into the back of the net on 34 minutes to put De Town back on level terms.

The new-look Longford side didn’t stop there and immediately went on the attack again. Some nice, fast flowing football had Cork on the backfoot and it didn’t take long before Longford got their second. A counter attack saw Karl Chambers break down the right wing before playing it in to Paul O’Conor who laid it off to Adam Evans on the left flank. Evans swung in a wide cross and O’Conor was on the end of it to make it 2-1 to De Town.

Cork had the chance to equalize only moments later when they were awarded a penalty. Town goalkeeper Jack Menton had other ideas and stopped the shot brilliantly.

Aodh Dervin pictured last season against Cork City during the FAI Cup match at City Calling Stadium.

Longford’s third goal came just before half time when another swift counter attack saw Aaron Dobbs take the ball down just outside the centre cirlce before laying it off to O’Conor who played Adam Evans in behind the Cork defence where he made no mistake in slotting it by McNulty who made it 3-1 to De Town.

The second half saw a lot of changes for both sides with each using all of their respective subs. Cork began the second half with intent and bombarded Longford with pressure. Goalkeeper Lee Steacy was forced into a couple of good saves early on.

Cork tried but couldn’t break through the Longford defence. Tristan Noack-Hofmann and Michael McDonnell cleaned up in the centre while Anto Breslin and sub Tumelo Tlou impressed.

The game finished 3-1 to Longford and although it’s only pre-season, this was a fantastic result for Neale Fenn’s side and should be a major confidence booster going into Tuesday’s friendly with league and cup champions Dundalk at Oriel Park.

LINE-UPS

Cork City: McNulty (GK), Phillips, Casey, Barry, McLoughlin, Griffin, McCormack, Morrissey, Buckley, Tilley, Rainsford.

Subs: Harrington, Horgan, McCarthy, Bennett, Kavanagh, Hurley, Comerford, O’Connor, Cummins, Coughlan.

Longford Town: Menton (GK), Breslin, Manley, Kenna, Chambers, Dervin, Zambra, Elworthy, Dobbs, O’Conor, Evans.

Subs: Steacy (GK), Noack-Hofmann, Doyle, O’Sullivan, Fitzsimons, Tlou, O’Neill.

Watch match highlights of the game on our YouTube channel.

PLAYER INTERVIEW: Jamie Doyle speaks to LTFC.ie

Thu Jan 31st 2019

Come February 22nd it will have been 153 days without a competitive ball being kicked for Jamie Doyle and his Longford Town FC teammates. To put that into context, that is almost five months without De Town taking to the field of play in a competitive setting. As the days count down ever so slowly, Town striker Jamie Doyle caught up with LTFC.ie’s Andrew Dempsey as the excitement ratchets up another notch towards the season opener away to Limerick FC on February 22nd.

Having returned to pre-season training shortly after Christmas to meet up with his teammates after the long break, in a footballing capacity at least, the former Bohemians and UCD hitman revealed that pre-season preparations are going well thus far.

“Pre-season is going well. All the squad are pulling together in the one direction looking for promotion. There’s no injuries just yet and everyone is happy! Our last game was in September versus UCD and that feels like a lifetime ago so roll on Limerick in three- or four-weeks’ time. Everyone in the squad is pulling in towards that game and we are all looking forward to it beginning again!”

In terms of blending into the squad, Jamie noted that the ideal mix of both youth and experience will be massive aid to De Town’s aspirations of 2019 at the City Calling Stadium.

“The new signings have been great. Neale has obviously brought in a good mix of youth and experience this year. Anto Breslin has come in and has looked excellent, coming in from Wolves. Paul O’Conor has also come in bringing in much experience, so all is good. It’s all blending in quite nicely at the moment!”

Reflecting on his best moments in the Longford Town jersey to date, the former Shelbourne target man admitted that his favourite memory in the Red and Black would have to be the superb 2-0 win over his former employers in the FAI Cup Second Round in August 2018.

“I would have to say when we knocked out Shels in the FAI Cup last year would be my favourite moment for Longford. They had beaten us 6-1 a couple of weeks before and it didn’t feel like wee got what we deserved in the end. It was nice to beat them after all that.”

While De Town just about missed out on the playoffs last term, the 25-year-old former UCD man admits that injuries took away from De Town’s playoff charge in the end.

“I thought we didn’t have the depth in the squad towards the end of last year. We had a couple of key injuries at the end of last year and we just couldn’t keep up. We lost our experience from injuries and that was that.”

Despite that, the striker, once of LSL side Leixlip United is confident that the squad has been added to accordingly which will hopefully drive the team on towards an even better finish come September 2019.

“However, we’ve added to the squad big time this year and everyone seems to be doing well and maybe that can help us go one step closer this year!”

Looking at the side’s ambitions for 2019, Doyle has fired warning shots towards the rest of the division.

“We want to win the league outright! There’s no point in playing otherwise, I think. If we get into the Playoffs all well and good but we want to win the league, that’s it!”

And finally, Neale Fenn’s key attacking outlet has called on the club’s supporters to get right behind the team this year, admitting that the support from the stands really does help in pushing the team when the going gets tough on the field of play.

“Hopefully the fans can come out in numbers again to get behind us. They’ve been absolutely brilliant since I’ve come in last season and even the away support was unbelievable as well. They were brilliant at the likes of Galway and Drogheda last season, it was brilliant and if they can do the same it will be a massive help and we’ll go far!”

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