31 July 2016
Now it's time to get caught up with the action on the pitch, aside from our adventures in the European Champions Cup.
It's been a magical summer, all around. After the draw with St. Pat's Athletic, the match that marked
Patrick Lynch's coming-out party, we ran off five straight wins in the league. The defeat that ended that run was perhaps to be predicted; a decent Longford side caught us four days after our emotional victory over Ludogorets.
The next Wednesday, we returned to European competition. Our opponent in the Third Qualifying Phase was
FK Vardar Skopje, from Macedonia's First League. Interestingly enough, they were eliminated by Ludogorets in last year's Champions Cup.
Macedonia's top league is rated considerably better than ours--62nd in the world--but we had very little difficulty against them on the "home" leg of the tie. I used quotation marks because Eamonn Deacy Park isn't big enough to host a match at this stage of the Champions Cup, so we played the match at Thomond Park Stadium in Limerick. This stadium seats over 26,000, and it's usually used for rugby union.
The crowd of just under 3,000 who turned out would have fit nicely in our grounds, and would have created a much more lively atmosphere. Nevertheless, we took control of the match early on with a lovely Lynch strike, and we never looked back.
Despite our run of form, we haven't been able to separate ourselves from St. Pat's. Instead, our two clubs have run off and left the rest of the league. I forgot to grab a shot of the table, but I remember there being a gap of 8-10 points between the second and third placed clubs. We're top of the league by a point, with a game in hand.
Next week, the lads and I are off to Macedonia for the second leg of our Champions Cup qualifier and then, sometime in August, we'll enter the Senior Challenge Cup. Hopefully our squad is strong enough to compete on several fronts.