Treaty United Prepare for Longford Town Challenge

Treaty United will be keen to maintain their unbeaten start to the Airtricity League season when they entertain Longford Town at the Markets Field on Friday night (7.45). It will be Treaty’s first home game of the season following the postponement of the meeting with Athlone Town a fortnight ago.

The Limerick side have begun the season with a 1-5 victory over Wexford FC and a 0-0 draw last week with Cobh Ramblers in a scrappy encounter at St. Colman’s Park. In a game of few chances, Lee Devitt and Callum McNamara had the best opportunities for Treaty but Jack Brady also came to the rescue on a couple of occasions.

Longford Town only started their league campaign last week with a creditable 0-0 draw with Cork City at Bishopsgate. It will be the first meeting between the two sides since Treaty joined the league as the Midlanders were in the Premier Division last season.

Manager Tommy Barrett was quick to take aim at unrealistic expectations being placed on his players following the draw and thinks “realism needs to kick in.

“I think a lot of realism needs to set in with people about where we are at as we are two years old as a club. For us to be going out and be expected to beat an experienced Cobh side, it doesn’t work like that. We are signing players from junior teams and other first division teams and the likes of Wexford have signed players from premier division teams. Obviously, there is an increase in budget up there and it’s just football economics.”

Treaty were without the services of Joe Gorman, Jack Lynch and Kieran Hanlon through injury and sickness last week but while Hanlon will be expected to return, there are still big doubts over the fitness of the former Galway duo. As mentioned, Longford were relegated from the topflight last season and Gary Cronin has arrived as manager following four years at Bray Wanderers. He has also brought Dylan Barnett, Ryan Graydon and Darren Creaven to the club from the Seagulls and judging by last week’s performance, will certainly expect to cause the home side problems tomorrow evening.

It is the beginning of a particularly tough period for Treaty with a trip to Galway coming on Monday night and a home game against Cork City with both of those sides looking to challenge for league honours. However, Barrett was quick to point out that his side cannot take their eye off the ball on any given week and every week is a tough one. “It’s all a tough period. Every game is a tough game and the minute we take our eye off the ball and think something is easy, we are in trouble. Every game we play is going to be a battle and the players aren’t found wanting for that.”

Our ‘Soccer Scene’ analysts Noel and Jason O’Connor discussed the Longford clash on this week’s podcast. To view the podcast in full, click on the link below.

We were also delighted to be joined by ‘Between the Stripes’ podcast presenter Kieran Burke who is also a fanatic Longford Town supporter. To listen to the interesting discussion with Kieran ahead of the game, see below:

Treaty United senior women’s side endured a heavy 5-0 defeat at the hands of DLR Waves on Saturday in Don O’Riordan’s first game in charge. There was upheaval in women’s ranks last week with the news that Craig Hurley had left his role as manager of U-17’S AND U-19’s following last year’s national success at u-17’s level. The next game for the senior women’s side will be a home encounter at the Markets Field with Cork City on Saturday with a 5pm kick-off.