Match Preview: Shamrock Rovers v Longford Town
Match Preview by James Donnelly
EA SPORTS CUP SECOND ROUND
Shamrock Rovers v Longford Town FC
Monday 2nd March 2018
Tallaght Stadium | 7.00pm
Longford Town head to Tallaght on Monday night to face Shamrock Rovers in the second round of games in the EA Sports Cup. It was Rovers who knocked De Town out at the quarter final stage of this competition last year after a 1-0 defeat in Tallaght saw Longford bow out. There is currently only 7 of that Town team currently with the squad while all other players & management have since moved on.
Rovers come into the game off the back of a 1-0 victory over Sligo Rovers in the league while Longford left Galway last Friday night with a hard earned draw. Longford will be feeling optimistic having had a decent run of results in the league (bar the 3-2 loss to Shels courtesy of a last minute peno winner), the opening encounter with Cobh ending 2-2 followed by a comfortable 3-0 win over Wexford, throw in the 5-1 thrashing of Athlone and the performance of the team in Galway last Friday, De Town should be feeling fairly confident they can go to Tallaght and get a result. Rovers have had a similar start to their league campaign, an opening day draw with Dundalk, was followed two 6 goal thrashings of Bray and Derry. Followed by a loss to Cork City, the south Dublin derby with Pats ended in a 1-0 victory for Rovers and they followed that up with an away win over Limerick before losing out to Waterford at the RSC.
While clubs sometimes use this competition to throw out a few of the “youngsters”, Longford fans can expect a strong side to be fielded by Neale Fenn with maybe 2 or 3 changes from the team that lined out against Galway. Alan Kehoe and former Rovers player Darren Meenan are still out injured, Peter Hopkins who was on the bench v Galway remains 50/50 while Dylan McGlade will see out his last remaining game under suspension tonight. Sean Boyd and Joey O’Brien are on the injured list for Rovers.
Pic from 2017’s EA Sports Cup Quarter Final between Shamrock Rovers & Longford Town. Pic: Sportsfile