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Chairman’s Welcome. A word from our Chairman, Pat O’Sullivan
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elcome everyone to today's Airtricity League U19 match against Longford Town. Our target this season is promotion to the Elite Division so that our young players can test themselves against the best sides at U19 level week in, week out. Every club in the Southern Section will have started with the same target and the division is very tight with just three points separating the top three teams. With just four games left in the season, today's is a hugely important one for the club. Our next game, away to table-topping Mervue United next weekend, looks like it will be the critical remaining fixture, but only if we do our job and approach our other games professionally. While we won comfortably in our opening game of the season at home against Longford, we were beaten in the return fixture in October so we can take nothing for granted, nor will we. Our senior squad is building comfortably ahead of the new season and it's up to our U19 players to play themselves into Stuart's plans for next season. We've put a lot of work into these young players. Many have received international honours but it's up to them now to push on. Stuart has already shown his willingness to bring young players through and Shane Costelloe, Colm Murphy, Val Feeney, Tony Whitehead and Kieran Hanlon are among those who established
themselves in matchday squads and starts last season. That experience is invaluable for those players and is a great return on the structures we put in place in the club. I'd like to acknowledge the volunteers who give their time on U19 matchdays and have helped drive a strong level of organisation and standard of service around our underage games. Volunteers are vital to the club and their efforts are hugely appreciated. Thanks for your support, on and off the pitch; it plays a huge part in the development of these underage players. Enjoy the game.
PAT O’SULLIVAN
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LONGFORD TOWN
MANAGER DECLAN FARMER
MANAGER MARK CONNORS
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
Nathan MURRAY Gavin WHYTE Colm MURPHY Tony WHITEHEAD Paudie O'CONNOR Mark HOBAN Nathan KELLY Shane WALSH Kieran HANLON Seรกn MCSWEENEY Cian O'DONOGHUE James MCGRATH Gavin DILLON AJ O'CONNOR Matt KEANE Evan SHINE Conor MCGUIRE Ross FITZGERALD Mikey GREED Evan CUSACK Tadhg RYAN Val FEENEY Shane COSTELLOE Ross MANN Michael GUERIN Ronan COUGHLAN P
TEAM
PL
W
D
L
PTS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Mervue United Limerick FC Bohemian FC Wexford Youths Longford Town
8 8 8 8 8
5 5 4 1 1
2 0 2 2 2
1 17 3 15 2 14 5 5 5 5
David MCNAMARA Darren MCGARRY Seรกn DUARTE Karl BYRNE Jamie MULHALL Giordano CINELLI Adam COATES Dean MURPHY Ciarรกn GROGAN Brian MCNAMARA Karl MALONE Craig FITZGERALD Paul KENNEDY Dylan NOLAN Joe LAWRENCE Lee HIGGINS Alex O'CALLAGHAN Adrian BAJGORA Aaron BRILLY Dylan MCKEEVER Darren CLARKE Ryan CARBERRY
FORM
Limerick FC Longford Town
W LW LW LW D L L
NEXT FIXTURE
Mervue United v Limerick FC Sunday 15th December, 2pm
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LIMERICK FOOTBALL CLUB
LONGFORD TOWN
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Managers Notes. Matchday notes from Limerick FC U19’s manager, Declan Farmer.
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ood afternoon and welcome to our Southern Division game against Longford Town. The last time we faced Longford, in October, they beat us 1-0 and that’s a defeat that is still very fresh in my mind. Longford play 4-3-3 and like to play out from the back. In fairness to them, they scored a great goal from long range against us to win the last meeting. After that, they got ten men behind the ball and defended well. We did our best to get back on terms but we just couldn’t break them down. We were missing a lot of our players that day as they were involved in the first-team squad who were playing in Bray at the same time. That gave a lot of our younger players an opportunity which was good. But we’ll have all those lads back now so we’ll be strong. I thought after beating us that Longford would go on and get better results but they haven’t done that for whatever reason. They certainly did improve from the opening day when we beat them 4-0 in LIT/St. Nessan’s. But we’ll just concentrate on ourselves and focus on getting the right result. This afternoon, we are switching back to the artificial surface here at Aisling Annacotty and I’m happy with that. Last season, we did really well here but struggled when we went to play on grass. This term, we have a 100 percent record on grass at St. Nessan’s and I feel we’ve improved away from home. We’re training on the astro so the players are well used to it and it may be to our advantage. We have good quality players and they should be
able to show what they can do on a good surface. It’s that time of the year where pitches aren’t great and that was the case two weeks ago when we played Wexford Youths at St. Nessan’s, so we’ve decided to switch to here. I felt we put in a good performance against Wexford. We were on top and could have scored more goals, but hopefully on the better surface today we can move the ball quicker and convert more chances. Hopefully, we can put two good results together before Christmas and if we do that I feel we’ll be well on our way to reaching our target. On a final note, well done to Val Feeney (hat-trick), Evan Shine (two goals), Shane Walsh and AJ O’Connor who all featured in a 6-1 win for the Irish Schools during the week against Salthill Devon Under-19s. Enjoy the game.
DECLAN FARMER
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Action from Limerick FC U19’s 1-0 victory over Wexford Youths. PHOTOS: Conor Wyse Photography.
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