Pat’s aiming for Cloud Nine after busy week
By Stephen Leonard
ST PATRICK’S Athletic will be hoping to put behind them the pain of a 4-0 loss to reigning Airtricity League champions Dundalk by chalking up nine points over the coming week.
Liam Buckley’s boys play host to bottom side Sligo Rovers on Friday before travelling to Finn Harps the following Monday and then entertaining Wexford Youths four days later.
Pat’s run of three straight wins in the Premier Division was rudely interrupted by a heavy home defeat at the hands of Dundalk last month.
And after a two-week break since then, the Saints will be eager to return to action.
Their next three games come against teams currently in the bottom half of the table, but while he appreciates that they will be expected to win all three, St Pat’s goalkeeper Brendan Clarke will not be taking lightly this week’s challenges.
“We’ll be expected to win these games and if we want to win the league, these are the games that we have to be winning. That’s no disrespect to our opponents.
“Sligo had a good game against Cork and should perhaps have won it, Finn Harps beat Longford Town and Wexford Youths got a good win against Bray so they’ll be coming up the road full of confidence.
“The thing about this league is that if you don’t turn up you get beaten.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re top, middle or bottom of the league. If you don’t turn up you’ll get beat” he stressed.
Looking back on their loss to Dundalk, Clarke told The Echo “The thing about the Dundalk match is that we didn’t play particularly bad. We had periods of pressure but we didn’t convert our chances and that second goal was a real killer.
“People will look at it as a 4-0 defeat and see that that’s our season in nutshell, but it’s not the end of the world and we’ll be looking to bounce back.
“We won three matches in a row against Longford, Bohs and Rovers and didn’t concede a goal.
“Getting beaten 4-0 [by Dundalk] might have left everyone deflated but we took a lot of positives from that game and we’ll be looking to use them now” he insisted.
