General
- Thursday April 25th, 2024 @ 15:35
Preview: Shelbourne Vs Saints (26/04/24)
St Patrick's Athletic are ready for huge a Dublin derby on Friday night as they make the short trip to Drumcondra to face Shelbourne at Tolka Park.
Having been unbeaten in their previous five matches, The Saints come into tomorrow night off the back of a 3-1 defeat in Derry on Monday.
A Daniel Mullen brace along with a Pat Hoban goal sealed the points for The Candystripes, despite Conor Keeley's reply, which made it 2-1.
Brandon Kavanagh's wide free-kick was superbly turned home by Keeley on the volley, giving Brian Maher no chance. That was a first league for the club for Keeley and a 6th assist of the campaign for Kavanagh, keeping the 23-year-old out in front in terms of assists this season.
Jon Daly's men have got 15 points from their opening 12 Premier Division games and currently sit in 6th position in the Premier Division table, just four points off second. A win tomorrow night would move St Pat's to within four points of top spot, currently occupied by Shelbourne.
OPPOSITION WATCH:
This Friday's fixture will be our 148th league meeting with Shelbourne and the tale of the tape is a close call.
St Pat's have won 55, there have been 25 draws and Shelbourne have won 57 times.
The Reds are top of the Premier Division, with 22 points from their 12 games.
Damien Duff's side began the season with a nine match unbeaten run, before back-to-back defeats against Bohemians and Galway United and Monday's scoreless draw at home to Shamrock Rovers.
The most recent meeting of these teams was just six weeks ago, with Shels winning 2-1 at Richmond Park on March 15th.
A second half Will Jarvis double put the Drumcondra men 2-0 up, before Jake Mulraney pulled a goal back with a clever header from Brandon Kavanagh's free-kick.
Despite a strong second half showing, Pat's couldn't find an equaliser.
These sides faced off four times in the league in 2023, with three wins for Pat's (all 1-0) and one for Shels.
The last encounter of 2023, and Saints' last visit to Tolka, was a 2-1 victory for Shels last September.
Skipper Joe Redmond had given his side the lead before goals from Euclides Cabral and former Saint Paddy Barrett earned the home side all three points in a last minute win.
All three of Pat's wins were courtesy of set piece goals from Eoin Doyle (in February), Sam Curtis (in May) and Jake Mulraney (in June).
Curtis scored his first goal in senior football to separate the sides in front of packed away end to give his team the 1-0 win the last time Pat's won at Tolka.
DALY: "We'll be aiming to get a positive result for the traveling fans"
Manager Jon Daly spoke to our website after training on Thursday to preview the game:
"We're looking forward to the game and will be aiming to bounce back from Monday night.
We started really well and could have been ahead, it was unfortunate to concede the first goal when Joe Redmond was off getting treatment, I felt it was against the run of play.
We've been very strong on defensive set pieces this season so it was disappointing to concede from a set piece early in the second-half, then when we get one back through Conor Keeley, we looked like pushing on but to concede from another set piece just a couple of minutes later made things very difficult.
We'd been on a good run up to Monday, unbeaten in five with two wins and three draws, so we'll doing our best to get back to that, starting tomorrow night at Tolka.
It's a very tight league table, and we know a win would move us within four points of the top.
Shelbourne are top of the table, they've had an excellent first third of the season.
Although they've had a few draws and a couple of defeats recently, we know what they are capable of and we need to be prepared for that.
We've had some brilliant games at Tolka Park over the last couple of seasons since Shels came up and have scored some excellent goals in a couple of great wins, and that 4-4 draw!
Last season, we earned a hard fought 1-0 victory there through a Sam Curtis header from a set piece in the first game, and came out on the wrong side in the last minute in our other match there last year.
They beat us at Richmond six weeks ago, we felt both of their goals were preventable and we know we'll need to defend well tomorrow night.
Our lads have prepared well and we're looking forward to another big game.
I'm told we'll have over 1,000 Pat's fans in the away end which is great, the atmospheres in the Dublin derbies really add to the game and we'll be aiming to get a positive result for the traveling fans."
LENNON: "We're looking forward to the game"
Jamie Lennon is one of the most experienced players in the St Patrick's Athletic squad and knows just what it means to play in, and win, big Dublin derbies.
The 25-year-old, who has been named 'Manguard Plus / St Patrick's Athletic Player of the Month, three times in a row (November 2023, February 2024, March 2024), has been in fantastic form this season and is hoping to help is side pick up three points at Tolka Park.
Lenny joined the St Patrick's Athletic Academy from Shelbourne in 2017, and has gone on to make 188 senior appearances so far, speaking after Monday's 3-1 defeat in Derry, the midfielder is focused on Friday night.
"We've got to take the positives from the Derry game, our build up was really good and we got into the final third quite a bit, in a place that's very tough to come and get a result.
We uncharacteristically switched off at set pieces and got punished by a good team so we've just got to take it on the chin and move onto Friday.
The games are coming thick and fast, so we don't have time to think about the last games, we've got to move on to the next one, which is probably a positive thing as we don't have to wait too long to try to put it right.
We've picked up some good results and our performance levels are getting better as the season has gone on, but we've also left some points behind, we'd like to have more points then we have and it's about turning the tight games into wins if we can.
We've been a little bit inconsistent which is probably understandable given that we have a lot of new players in the squad and in the team, we've got to keep gelling and hopefully we'll get better as the season goes on.
Shels are still top of the league, it will be a tough game at a tough venue, we've gone there (to Tolka) and won last year when a lot of teams didn't so we'll be aiming to do the same again.
They came to our place earlier in the season and beat us, we'll be looking to turn that around, we're looking forward to the game now."
TEAM NEWS
Axel Sjoberg and Tom Grivosti are out through injury.
TICKETS / TV / UPDATES
1,100 St Patrick's Athletic supporters will be in a sold out away end at Tolka Park, the game will also be live on LOITV.
As always, updates and our live Watch Party can be found on the Official St Pat's FC App - available now on both the App Store and Play Store.
Updates will also be available across all the club's social media channels and WhatsApp.
Photo credit: Inpho Sports
