Redmond raring to get Saints up and running

THE YOUNGEST captain in the League of Ireland Premier Division, Joe Redmond of St Patrick’s Athletic, is excited to welcome Derry City to Richmond Park for the opening game of the season on Friday night.

The Saints have enjoyed a strong pre-season, facing-off against Bray Wanderers, Galway United, and Sligo Rovers before playing Waterford in their final warm-up game last Saturday.

For the first competitive fixture of the year it’s a tricky test against Derry, who are managed by former Republic of Ireland scout Ruaidhrí Higgins.

Higgins managed Derry to the FAI Cup in 2022 and they maintained an unbeaten record against the Inchicore outfit last season, winning three out of four matches.

Redmond, who is from Kilnamanagh, was given the armband last summer after it was announced that Ian Bermingham would be retiring.

“We’re really excited, we’ve worked hard and we’re getting to the closing stages of pre-season now,” said Redmond (23) when talking to St Patrick’s Athletic on social media.

“I really can’t wait to get going, we’ve done all the hard yards and… we’ve all prepared for the whole season as well this first game.”

St Pat’s finished five-points behind the Candystripes and were 18-points off three-in-a-row winners Shamrock Rovers last season.

“We have to play everybody at some stage,” Saints manager Tim Clancy said.

“It’s going to be a difficult one to start the season off but again, you might as well go in the deep end.

“Derry were excellent last season, obviously won the cup and finished joint-second with Dundalk.

“I’d imagine they’d be trying to push on to catch Rovers and that’s something we’d be looking to do as well.

“It’s a huge game to start the season off and hopefully we can come out the right side of it.”

There is five new faces who have arrived into Inchicore over the winter off-season with Estonian midfielder Vladislav Kreida joining on a season-long loan from Flora Tallinn and Conor Carty joining on loan from Bolton Wanderers.

Tommy Lonergan signed a permanent deal with the Saints from UCD alongside former Crumlin United youth Jake Mulraney, joining after three-years in the MLS, and Dutch defender Noah Lewis.

“We’ve strengthened.

“Bringing the five lads that we’ve brought in will give us a little bit of quality to the squad,” Clancy added.

“We were very happy to retain all the players that we did retain and I think between now and February 22, there will be one or two more coming in which will strengthened us again.

“We’ll have a little bit of continuity from last season as well, and a little bit more knowhow of how we wanted to do things after 12-months with us.