Saturday’s match in Tallaght Stadium kicks off at 4 pm. Tickets are on sale here. The match will be streamed on LOITV.

This week we’re back in league action to take on Athlone, who have made an impressive start to the season, sitting in 2nd place just two points off the top of the table and are unbeaten since a loss on opening day, so are you expecting a tough game?

Yeah, I’m expecting a tough game. They’re pretty direct and they’ve good strength in the attacking end of the pitch, so they’re going to ask us an awful lot of questions. We’ll have our work cut out to try and keep a clean sheet on the day but they have been impressive this year in the league campaign, and it’s no surprise when you have someone like Ciaran Kilduff leading them that their attacking strengths are the main strengths of their team 

The last time we faced Athlone was on the final day of last season, with us heading into the last half an hour 4-1 up but the game resulted in a 4-4 draw, which cost us 2nd place. Does that game show that Athlone are a team you have to have full concentration against for 90 minutes to get the win?

Thanks for bringing that up, I’ve been going to counselling for months to try and get that out of my mind! Yeah, they are a team that will go all the way to the end so it’s not just concentration levels. They’re the kind of team that will punish any mistake that you make and with the likes of Casey Howe, Maddie Gibson or Chloe Singleton in their attacking third, they’re good players with good quality that can punish you at any stage so we’ve got to be at it for the whole game.

Athlone have two players this season with a clear eye for goal in Chloe Singleton and Casey Howe who are both on 4 league goals going into this game. Has the team been working on defending in situations where the opponents have multiple tricky forwards to deal with?

Yes, we have. It’s not just a case of trying to deal with the one or two players that they have, it’s trying to deal with their whole attacking strength because they’re very good at getting the ball into wide areas, they’re very good at getting crosses into the box and then when it comes back out, there are extra crosses going back into the box. So it’s trying to work on that whole defensive unit and not just individual players that will hopefully get us the right result.

Another debut last week with Hannah Martin making her first appearance for the senior team. You really are building a squad for the future as well as the present with all of these young players coming through.

That is the plan, it was a case of trying to have something that could be competitive now but the long term was to try and have a team that is sustainable and is one from all the academy work that has been done between the U17’s and the U19’s and a lot of those players get their opportunities to come in and play and see how good they are, and if they’re willing to go and be brave enough to perform on the stage well then we’ll give them the opportunity to go and do that. That’s the way the club can survive long term.

It’s been a fairly consistent starting eleven over the past three weeks, are there any injury issues or updates that could change that?

Thankfully no, no injury issues. Savannah (McCarthy) is on the road to recovery and it looks like she’s pencilled in the Cork game for her game to be back. Jaime’s back from her concussion injury, so it looks like a clean bill of health.