Treaty United Travel to Athlone Town in Airtricity League

Treaty United will be looking to build on last week’s sensational win over league leaders Cork City when they travel to the Midlands to take on Athlone Town tonight (7.45).

It is a pivotal weekend in the race for the play-offs with Wexford facing Longford on Saturday at the City Calling Stadium. Treaty are currently sitting in fifth place and are now four points ahead of Wexford courtesy of last week’s win coupled with Ian Ryan’s side failing to beat Cobh Ramblers. A win on Friday night could send the Limerick side 7 points clear with 6 games to play going into Saturday’s encounter. If Longford fail to win, Tommy Barrett’s side could find themselves just three points behind the Midlanders in 4th.

It has been a hugely positive period for Barrett’s charges who have won 5 of their last 6 games in all competitions, keeping 4 clean sheets in the process. Ben O’Riordan scored a fantastic long range strike in Turners Cross and it will certainly rival Jack Lynch’s earlier effort against tonight’s opposition for the goal of the season award.

The return to full fitness of the likes of Mark Walsh and Enda Curran along with the recent arrivals of Success Edogun, O’Riordan and Darren Collins has strengthened the squad significantly. Last weekend against their Munster rivals, Treaty had a full compliment on the bench with Curran, Joel Coustrain, Conor Melody and Joe Collins all available for selection. Treaty are hopeful that captain Lynch will return in the next fortnight and the squad is hitting form at just the right time.

Another positive to the return of Walsh was the opportunity to move Callum McNamara out of centre-back and into midfield. Although the Newmarket native has excelled at the heart of the defence since the departure of Joe Gorman, his presence was missing in the middle of the park in recent weeks. Lee Devitt’s performance improved massively when partnered with McNamara and Martin Coughlan in midfield and it is likely that the trio will remain as the midfield of choice in Athlone.

Treaty manager Barrett reserved special praise for both McNamara and Devitt, both from Newmarket.

In the three previous meetings between Treaty and Athlone so far in 2022, the Limerick side are unbeaten with two victories and one draw. A brace from former Athlone player Dean George gave Treaty a 2-0 win in the first meeting at the Markets Field.

In the return fixture, Athlone made it much more difficult and looked to have secured all three points when current Treaty player Edogun gave his former club the lead but a piledrive from Steven Christopher rescued a point. In their most recent meeting, Treaty were 2-1 victors with Jack Lynch scoring a goal of the season contender from distance along with a Dean George strike. Thomas Oluwa replied for Athlone but it wasn’t enough to prevent defeat.

During this week’s ‘Soccer Scene’ podcast, Adrian Finnin and Noel O’Connor previewed the Athlone Town game with O’Connor expecting Treaty to continue their good form. To watch the full episode 27, see below.