The Bit O’ Red are on the road for the second weekend in a row as we take on Athlone Town at Lissywoolen tomorrow evening at 7pm.

Last weekend, Rovers were defeated 2-0 by Wexford Youths at Ferrycarrig Park, in yet another strong performance against the experienced Youths side.

Athlone are on the back of an impressive win over DLR Waves midweek in Dublin and are looking to make it three wins from three for the first time this season.

Manager Steve Feeney:

‘’We travel to Athlone on Saturday to take on an in-form Athlone team who will be hoping to pick up a third win in seven days. Athlone are a very good side and manager Tommy Hewitt will have them well organised, while they will also be a threat from open play and set plays. It’s another challenge for our players to take on a side who have gone from strength to strength in their time in the women’s national league.

We go into the game on the back of a loss against Wexford Youths, while again there was positives in our performance, we were disappointed that we weren’t a bigger threat going forward and feel this is something we will need to be better at against Athlone on Saturday. We will continue to work on the various aspects of our game, but the players have been incredible with how quickly they can take in information and apply it in games and that’s something we will continue to do while giving players the platform to show their ability on a national stage.

We will have one game left in the first round of fixtures after Saturday and while we want to push on and continue to improve it’s hard not to look back at how far this group has come in such a short space of time and be filled with pride. They have represented the club with such pride and are keen to keep moving forward which makes them a pleasure to work with for myself and all our backroom team. It’s not just the senior team that have been doing well though, our U-17s and U-19s Coaches and players also continue to do great work, we have had players from both squads train with the senior team in recent weeks and its fantastic to see the attitudes and talent coming through at the club, I have no doubt some of those players will play in the senior team this season. However, for now our focus very much remains on our performance in each game and we look forward to another tough test on Saturday v Athlone’’.

In team news Feeney has a fully fit squad to choose from apart from Keela Scanlon who is unavailable and Emma Hansberry who is a doubt with a slight muscle problem.

The game is at 7pm and Live coverage on LOI TV starts just before kick off.