General
- Wednesday January 25th, 2012 @ 15:43
SAINTS TO FACE CLIFTONVILLE IN SETANTA CUP
St Patrick's Athletic have been drawn to play Cliftonville in the first round of the 2012 Setanta Sports Cup after today's draw in Dublin.
The first leg will take place in Belfast on 13th February with the return leg in Richmond Park on 20th February.
The Saints were represented at the draw by Ger O'Brien, James Chambers and manager Liam Buckley and O'Brien is looking forward to getting back to competitive football:
"I've never played Cliftonville before as a player but I'm aware that they knocked the club out last season so hopefully we can turn that around.
"They play on an artificial surface and we've done most of our pre-season training on astroturf so hopefully that will stand to us.
"After the first couple of weeks of pre-season we can't wait to get back to competitive football.
"The new format probably favours the northern teams slightly with where they are in their season while we're only starting out.
"They're joint second in their league so they obviously have a strong squad but we have some very good players here and we can't wait to get started."
