All-Square at Oriel Park as Pre-Season Prep continues

Pre-Season Friendly

Dundalk FC 0
Athlone Town 0

Oriel Park

Athlone Town played out a scoreless draw away to north-east outfit Dundalk last Sunday afternoon in their third fixture of their pre-season plans. Athlone enjoyed more possession of the ball in comparison to last Thursday night’s encounter with Premier Division side Bohemians and in truth the result could have gone either way in this end-to end encounter with both sides having their chances.

With manager Brendan Place attending his Pro-Licence coaching course, assistant manager Padraig Moran took control with newly installed coach Alan McCann also overlooking proceedings. As is expected with pre-season matches, Athlone made numerous changes to their starting line-up with former Dundalk players Chris Bennion and Robbie Farrell among those to come into a 4-4-2 visitor’s line-up.

Dundalk were the side to get the first real sight at goal as Wayne Hatswell fired in a free-kick in the 5th minute but found Bennion positioned well to comfortably deal with the set-piece. Athlone answered back with an opportunity of their own as holding midfielder Kevin Dunne played in Niall Scullion behind the opposition back four only for Dundalk net-minder Peter Cherrie to parry away the ensuing strike.

Dundalk midfielders Tom Miller and Alan Cawley were seeing a lot of the ball in the opening 45 minutes and one such occasion led to the former firing just over after doing well to skip past Dunne and Stephen Place.

The best move of the first half took place with Athlone in possession with Place, Gordon Watson and Farrell all involved in the build up leading o a smartly saved Niall Scullion attempt just shy of the half-time break.

Niall Scullion had the first opportunity of the second half for the away team as he cut in off the right flank before letting fly with a left-footed curler that went just wide of the goal frame. Dundalk striker Sam Melson then had a shot on the spin fly over the bar after good chest control on the edge of the area.

The best chance of the match fell Dundalk’s way with a quarter of an hour still to play with Melson heading wide after a good delivery out wide from Stephen Maher.

That was to be the last real action of this game as both teams held out for a draw. Like all pre-season fixtures, the result wasn’t the most important thing but they’ll surely be pleased with the clean sheet and another 90 minutes under their belt ahead of the coming season.

Dundalk FC
Peter Cherrie (Matt Gregg, 45 mins.)
Michael Synnott
Jason Mok (Dermot McCaffrey, 45 mins.)
Tom Miller
Gary Breen (Ciaran McGuigan, 66 mins.)
Wayne Hatswell
Stephen Maher
Alan Cawley (Ritchie Hurlin, 45 mins.)
Sam Malson
Neale Fenn (David McGowan, 45 mins.)
Jack Macleod (Stephen McDonnell, 71 mins.)

Athlone Town
Chris Bennion (Michael Slingerman, 60, mins.)
Mark Nolan
Eoghan O’Shea (Brendan Turley, 45 mins.)
Stephen Caffrey (Alan Keely, 58 mins.)
Des Hope (Garvan Broughall, 71 mins.)
Niall Scullion (Shane Dolan, 58 mins.)
Stephen Place (Noel McGee, 71 mins.)
Kevin Dunne
Tom O’Halloran (Kevin Quinn, 71 mins.)
Robbie Farrell (Richie O’Hanlon, 58 mins.)
Gordon Watson (Austin Skelly, 45 mins.)

Referee: Paul McLaughlin