General
- Thursday October 19th, 2023 @ 15:15
Match Preview: Saints V Bohemians (20/10/23)
The Saints return to Premier Division action this Friday as they travel to Dalymount Park to face Dublin rivals Bohemians in what will be a preview of the FAI Cup Final between the two sides in just over three weeks time.
Kick-off is at the usual time of 7.45pm.
The away allocation of 450 tickets for this game is completely sold out, with the tickets being sold out in a matter of minutes.
For those St Pat's fans who didn't manage to get a ticket, the game will be shown live on LOITV.
The Saints come into this game off the back of a 12-day break since they beat Cork City 2-0 in FAI Cup semi-final to secure a place at The Aviva.
Jon Daly's men took an early lead in Cork as Mark Doyle finished off a pinpoint Ryan McLaughlin cross to send the Saints fans wild. The away crowd totalled an impressive number of over 1,100 travelling from Inchicore for the Sunday afternoon game.
The second goal came when substitute Jay McClelland's powerful strike forced City 'keeper Ollie Byrne to have to parry the shot back into the path of Conor Carty, only just on as a substitute himself.
The Wicklow man then struck through with his laces first-time, rifling the ball into the roof of the net to rubber-stamp his side's place in the Final.
St Pat's fans and players alike rejoiced as the final whistle blew to confirm their second FAI Cup Final in three years against the same opponents.
Having not played in the Premier Division since a 1-0 away win to Cork City on September 29th, St Pat's remain in 3rd place in the league table with 56 points from 32 league games.
The Inchicore side are two points behind Derry City in 2nd and six points off Shamrock Rovers in top spot, with Derry having played one game more. Bohemians have 55 points from their 33 games, meaning they are just a point behind The Saints heading into the weekend.
St Pat's have a very strong domestic record in recent months, with 14 wins, three draws and just three losses in their last 20 games.
OPPOSITION WATCH & RECENT MEETINGS
The Saints have won one, drawn one and lost one of their three league encounters against The Gypsies this season.
The last meeting between the sides was in Richmond Park, with an exciting, tight-fought game ending 0-0 in August with the RTE cameras present.
The last time the Inchicore men visited Dalymount was a 3-2 win in April, with the goals coming from Chris Forrester, Jason McClelland and Mark Doyle in a Dublin derby thriller, all of the goals came in an 11-minute spell in the first-half.
The first clash of the campaign was at Richmond Park where Johnny Afolabi and Dean Williams were on target in a 2-0 victory for Bohs.
Friday's match will be the 190th league edition of this famous rivalry. St Pat's have won 73 of the 189 games so far, Bohemians have come out on time 62 times with 54 draws. The teams have traded a whopping 490 goals across those meetings.
It's five wins to three in favour of St Pat's over the last nine league meetings while memories of that famous 2021 FAI Cup final, which St Patrick's Athletic won on penalties at The Aviva, will still be fresh in the minds of Saints' supporters.
JON DALY: It's a great occasion"
Manager Jon Daly knows the business end of the season is in full flow but is keen to state that his players aren't focusing on anything but the task at hand in Dalymount this Friday:
"We're very much looking forward to it. The focus has been on Friday and that's it, we don't look beyond the next game which is Bohs at Dalymount.
The lads got a couple of days off at the start of the international break and then they came back in. Everything has gone towards prepping for this game. We were missing a couple of the younger players who've been away - Sam (Curtis) and Conor (Carty) with the Ireland U21s and Darius (Lipsiuc) and Mason (Melia) with their international teams too.
It's going to be a tough game against Bohs. We're very aware of what they do and the threat they pose. We've worked hard towards what we need to do to manage that. They've got some very good attacking players who can cause us a lot of problems and have done throughout the season.
If we win this game, it would be huge result. It doesn't guarantee anything but it obviously gets you one step closer to where you want to be. It's a huge game - we know that and Bohs know that. The fans also know it and I'm sure they’ll all be in full voice, all 450 that will be there."
TEAM NEWS
Tom Grivosti (knee), Axel Sjoberg (hamstring) and Harry Brockbank (quad) will all miss the game.
TICKETS
The away allocation of 450 tickets for this game is completely sold out, with the tickets being sold out in a matter of minutes.
LOITV
For those St Pat's fans who didn't manage to get a ticket, the game will be shown live on LOITV.
UPDATES:
As always, updates can be found on the Official St Pat's FC App - available now on both the App Store and Play Store, we'll have a live watch party for tomorrow night's game with the live fan chat also open.
Updates will also be available across all the club's social media channels.
Photo credit: Inpho Sports
