Matchday 28 Preview – Longford Town v Kerry FC
And then there were 9. Yep, you read that right, the league officially ticks past the three-quarter mark tomorrow and we face into the final 9 games of the season with the trip to Longford Town. From here on in, these will be the final meetings between the sides, with only 4 home games remaining for Kerry FC this season.
After an absorbing Cup game against Bohemians last Sunday, attention now turns back to the League for the so-called run-in. Despite Kerry exiting the cup on penalties, there has been a serious buzz around the club for the week having brought 7-time winners Bohemians all the way to penalties. But that buzz now needs to be transferred onto the pitch and it starts tomorrow against bottom-placed Longford Town.
One could argue that Kerry could be further up the table at this stage of the competition. With 27 points available in the remaining games, mathematically speaking the Kingdom has an outside chance of reaching the elusive playoff places. However, a more realistic story is the progress shown by the club in their second year in the competition. A win would take the Mounthawk club 7 points clear of the bottom which in itself is a huge achievement for the new boys.
Longford come into the game on a run of 5 straight defeats in the league, most recently losing 1-4 at home to Treaty United. But Kerry are without an away league win in 2024 and Longford having last weekend off to build up to this one, the home side will see this as a huge opportunity to take all 3 points and close the gap to 9th by a single point.
Matchday 28
Longford Town v Kerry FC – Bishopsgate Stadium
Saturday, August 24th – 19:30 Kick Off
Previous Meetings
Kerry FC wins 2 | Draws 1 | Longford Town wins 4
Did you know?
Longford Town are the only team Kerry have managed a home double over in the club’s history. A convincing 3-0 win over ‘De Town’ in April was followed up with a 2-1 home win back in June in Mounthawk Park. But Longford took the spoils in Bishopsgate back in June.
Injury Update
Following a thrilling Cup game against Bohemians that lasted 120 minutes last Sunday, Conor McCarthy reported a few soar bodies after the match. In positive news goalkeeper Antonio Tuta is closer to a return from his ankle injury and could feature in this one. Valerii Dolia returned from injury to make the Matchday squad last weekend, expect the Ukrainian to feature here.
‘What They Said’
Conor McCarthy – ‘We’ve plenty of sore bodies this week after the Bohemians game but we gave the players a couple of rest days to get themselves back right. We’ve seen them in training since coming back and they are as hungry as ever to keep going. We are putting everything into Saturday’s game now, the boys know what we need to do and we have a target set for the last 9 games to finish the season as strong as possible. It’s great to have Valerii back in the group, it’s earlier than we all thought which is great. We need everyone available to us now to close out the season in the best possible way.
