By Conall Collier

Sligo Rovers manager Tommy Hewitt is adopting a pragmatic approach ahead of Sunday’s Women’s FAI Cup semi-final against his former club, Athlone Town at the Showgrounds.

For Sligo Rovers this really is David versus Goliath or in footballing terms, bottom of the table against top of the table, a gap of 34 points between the sides with Athlone Town in the driving seat to win the Women’s Premier Division title.

That’s not in any way over-hyping the Westmeath side – and they will quietly have ambitions of completing a League and Cup double.

So, in real terms, is there any point in Sligo Rovers even turning up on Sunday?

After all, Sligo Rovers have failed to beat Athlone this season, last season ot the season before, and the Sligo Rovers manager was at the Athlone helm for the majority of those games, until a vacancy occurred at Athlone Town Stadium midway through last season.

Ciaran Kilduff took over the reins, his first game in charge was against Sligo Rovers, and he finished the job that Tommy Hewitt started with an FAI Cup final win at the end of last season.

Athlone Town defeated Sligo Rovers at the same stage of the competition last season.

“Athlone will rightly be overwhelming favourites on Sunday, but I know that the Sligo Rovers players can put in a performance that they will be happy with,” commented the Bit O’Red boss.

“We had three hard games in seven days last week and we were better in the third game despite losing the first two and conceding eight goals.

“We now can go into the Cup semi-final knowing that we can compete, but we have to bring consistency to our performances, once we do that we will have a chance.

“We definitely won’t lie down and roll over and hopefully we will make a contest out of it.

“I’ve been here before, that was as an underdog with Athlone in a Cup semi-final against Wexford and we won that day. A repeat of that now with Sligo Rovers would be a brilliant outcome.

“I have seen massive improvements since the start of the season and this is a free hit for us, we have nothing to lose and we really need to get a result against Athlone,” he added.

There are reasons for optimism ahead of Sunday’s encounter, one being the inclusion of both Keeva Flynn and Muireann Devaney in the League of Ireland team-of-the-week selection.

For a team that’s still looking for a first League win of the season to have the youngest centre-back in the Women’s Premier Division recognised is certainly overdue at this stage.

And the performance against Shamrock Rovers at Tallaght Stadium last Saturday now gives the manager a new kind of headache as he explained.

“A problem I have now is what team will I pick, it’s a good problem to have and the young players have put their hands up to start on Sunday in what is the biggest game of the season, so far,” he explained.

“We have to get the basics right and make it difficult for Athlone, if we can do that and stay in the game, then we will be in with a chance.

“When we conceded that early goal last week at Tallaght Stadium I felt that our reaction was superb, we certainly didn’t panic and Paula (McGrory) had a great chance of an equaliser about a minute later.

“It was a dogged performance in one sense, but we also played some very good football.

“One of my main targets initially was to improve our game from a physical aspect, that we wouldn’t be pushed off the ball or intimidated by the opposition.

“It’s quite obvious from our position in the League that all the other teams are better than us, up to now anyway, and to counter that we have to raise our performance in every game for 90 minutes.

“I got the feeling at Tallaght last Saturday, just standing on the sideline and watching the game, that we were actually going to get something out of it.

“I know that we gave away some chances, but we defended well and Bonnie (McKiernan) made some very good saves.

“We eventually got the equaliser with about three minutes remaining and then we almost won it.

“We were after losing twice in the previous five days and then to go to Tallaght and get the result we got just shows the character and determination of the players.

“If we can repeat that in the Showgrounds on Sunday, then we will definitely have a chance of causing an upset and hopefully we will have Emma (Hansberry) available again because she brings a lot of experience to the team,” he concluded.