St Patrick’s Athletic – Wexford Youths Preview: Saints host Keegan’s men
By Daire Walsh
The Dublin outfit will be aiming to continue their push up the table as they welcome newly promoted Youths to Richmond Park
Following their hard-earned 2-1 away victory over Finn Harps on Monday evening, St Patrick’s Athletic will once again play a newly-promoted team at Richmond Park on Friday night, when Shane Keegan’s Wexford Youths make the journey to south Dublin.
The Saints’ most recent league success ensures that they currently occupy fourth-place in the top-tier, but with every game in the Premier Division taking on a life of its own, Pat’s supremo Liam Buckley knows that they will need a big performance in their fourth home game of 2016.
“There’s no easy games in the league now. You can see with Wexford Youths [drawing] down in Cork and all that stuff. Wherever we’re going, we’re expecting a tough game,” Buckley told Donegal Sport Hub after the Finn Harps game.
“We’re delighted with it, bearing in mind we have Wexford Youths on Friday. Another tough game, bearing in mind their result last weekend, and I think they won the previous weekend.”
On the team news front, Pat’s skipper Ger O’Brien missed the game with Harps as a result of an ankle injury he suffered at home to Sligo Rovers last Friday evening, and remains a doubt – while goalkeeper Conor O’Malley is sidelined with a similar complaint.
After a difficult start to life in the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division, Wexford have now picked up four points from their last two games, and Youths boss Shane Keegan feels his side are starting to grow in confidence.
“The challenge now is to combine the two big performances with picking up points. You can perform all you want, but it’s picking up points that really gives players confidence,” Keegan remarked to wexfordyouthsfc.ie.
“You can see by our lads in training all week that they actually really fancy their chances tomorrow night. They know it will be a very tough game, but they’re really looking forward to it.”